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LONDON : 
Printed by Blatch & Lampert, Grove Place, Brompton. 



205449 
5 15 



PREFACE. 



The contents of the following volume are 
extremely miscellaneous. They consist of ex- 
tracts from the Author's papers during the last 
three years, and are here collected mainly to 
assure his friends that his mind has not lain idle 
during this period of a bustling and active epoch. 
The critical papers relate chiefly to French 
Literature ; yet the Author would wish to dis- 



IV PREFACE. 

claim the supposition of being unmindful of the 
progress of that of his own country. In an 
attempt to master the French language, he was 
led to a perusal of its contemporary literature, 
and once embarked in this track, to stop was by 
no means easy. He found also much miscon- 
ception and prejudice in the English public 
respecting contemporary fiction in France — a 
feeling fostered by an elaborate article in a lead- 
ing Review. Of all the writers attacked in that 
article, Monsieur De Balzac appeared to him to 
be the most unjustly treated : he was thus in- 
duced to vindicate his talent and power as a 
novelist, in a somewhat lengthy criticism. For 
the translations from De Beranger and the 
accompanying criticism no apology is offered; 
they are attempts at a very delightful but very 
difficult branch of composition, in which failure 



PREFACE. V 

is less disgraceful than success would be meri- 
torious. Above all, tbe Author can claim the 
merit of fidelity in his English versions. 

The short Essays which form the second part 
were written at various times as occasion sug- 
gested ; they are selected from a larger number, 
as being the most varied in character. Those 
who liked the popular sporting style of part of a 
former work of the Author's, will, it is hoped, 
here find one or two morsels to their taste. The 
rest are subjects suggested by travelling loca- 
lities, or the course of the Author's reading. 



In an age when all the world travel, and at 
least half write their travels, " Extracts from a 
Tourist's Journal," in very well known parts of 
the Continent, can scarcely be thought to possess 
much interest. But, at the suggestion of some 



VI PREFACE. 

of his friends, the Author adds this concluding 
portion to the volume ; it being their, perhaps 
partial, judgment, that he has in some degree 
succeeded in investing with freshness the de- 
scription of localities visited by every- day tour- 
ists. 

Bath, March, 1839. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

PAGE. 

Translations from De Beranger, with an accompanying 
Criticism . ...... 1 

Review of the Writings of De Balzac . .61 

Ohservations on the 6th and 7th vols, of Thiers' Revolution, 
and the Character of Rohespierre . . . .139 

A few Words on Paul de Koch . . . . 148 

Two short Critical Notes . * . 152 

PART II. 

Short Essays on Various Subjects : — 

1. Reflections on Chimney-pots .... 159 

2. On the Opening of the Birmingham and Manchester 

Railroad, July 20th, 1837 164 

3. London and Paris 170 



Vlll 



CONTENTS. 



4. On the Popular Feeling in France towards the 



English Nation 

5. Social Distinctions 

6. Pleasure . . . . 

7. Legitimate Ambition 

8. Bolinghroke and Mirabeau 

9. The Start and the Finish 
10 Passports 

11. A Catastrophe 



178 
185 
189 
190 
194 
199 
205 
206 



PART III. 

Extracts from a Tourist's Journal about the Alps and in 
Southern Germany, with one or two Home Sketches in 
the Years 1836, 7, and 8 211 



ESSAYS; 

CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. 



TRANSLATED SPECIMENS FROM 
DE BERANGER. 

The name of De Beranger has been long fami- 
liar to the English reader. His admirable 
political satires were hailed almost from their 
first appearance, in a countey like our own, 
where politics tinge almost everything that can 
be read or written. Some twelve years ago the 
" Westminster Review " gave spirited transla- 
tions of " Les infinements petits," " Le Diable 
est mort," and other songs of the same stamp. 
To the liberal party, in its largest sense, these 

B 



TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

spirited effusions against kingly and priestly 
tyranny were so many nuts to crack ; while all 
parties concurred in admiration of their keen 
but playful wit ; and De Beranger was placed at 
once by the side of the author of the " Two- 
penny Post Bag," and the " Fudge Family." 
And once introduced to our notice, he did not 
rest here : we soon discovered that his politico - 
satirical flashes comprised only one branch of a 
great variety of compositions, wherein he shows 
himself by turns the indignant champion of the 
people's rights, and the graceful epicurean 
songster, (embodying in the classic signification 
of the epithet both jollity and sentiment,) but 
through all, breathing the same kindly, sympa- 
thising spirit. 

And, as far as we recollect in the case of De 
Beranger, political bias has not prevented his 
merit from being acknowledged by the literary 
organs of all parties amongst us. This may in 
some degree be owing to the privilege conven- 
tionally awarded to a song writer, (by all men a 



FROM DE BERANGER. 6 

degree above the stupid despotism of the Bour- 
bons after the restoration,) and also to the joyous 
and kindly nature of the man and his writings ; 
for deeply indeed must he be indurated in poli- 
tical prejudice who would proscribe such songs 
as " Le Printemps et L'automme," " Mon 
Cure/' " Le Commencement du Voyage/' and 
fifty others, convivial or pathetic, or both united 
as the case may be. 

Notwithstanding, considering the unfair de- 
preciation which has been applied to other works 
in contemporary French literature, the fact of 
our acknowledgment of De Beranger's merits, 
without subtraction for political bias, must be 
recorded as worthy of praise. Since the period 
we have mentioned, translations of several of 
our author's miscellaneous songs, (as this collec- 
tion of lyrical poetry is modestly styled,) ap- 
peared in Father Prout's relics, and obtained a 
deserved popularity. Our present attempt to 
introduce a few more of these charming produc- 
tions in an English dress, is dictated by our 

b2 



4 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

admiration for the remarkable genius of their 
author, which we hope may excuse any defici- 
ency in the difficult task of translation. 

A small additional offering is intended to the 
well-deserved fame of a writer, allowed to be 
the first in his line ; and who has acted more 
largely and directly on the mass of his 
countrymen than any even in this age of 
literary activity. Goethe, Walter Scott, and 
perhaps Byron, have gained a more complete 
European reputation ; but not one of the three 
have fixed their names as a household word 
throughout the entire mass of their own country- 
men like De Beranger. Among the French 
population it is impossible to name a class where 
his productions are not relished. Their merit 
admitted in the most fastidious literary circles of 
Paris, by the middle and lower classes they are 
all but idolized. They are sung by the artisan 
at his workshop — by the grisette at her Sunday 
■partie de campagne — by the postillion who drives 
the diligence, (with his sabots and greasy blue 



FROM DE BEE, ANGER. 5 

frock) — and no doubt by thousands who could 
neither read nor write the name of the author. 
In this way he has acted as forcibly on public 
opinion as the poets of the early ages, whose 
works were orally repeated among their country- 
men ; and this in a fastidious age and blase on 
remarkable literary productions. 

The secret of this unexpected popularity will 
be found only after the entire perusal of his 
works. There (making allowance for the attrac- 
tions of popular and national music, and the 
reciprocal enthusiasm of the French, naturally 
exercised towards one as jealous of their glory, 
their virtues, and unconsciously perhaps, their 
foibles also, as is Beranger) sufficient still re- 
mains of a felicitous combination of simplicity 
and profundity, of caustic satire, joyous hilarity, 
and unaffected pathos, appealing in turn to all 
tastes, to account for this prodigious success. 
And all this versatility seems directly conse- 
quent on the extent of his sympathies as a man ; 
never was there so apparent an absence of all 



6 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

trickery of author-craft : we see the chansonnier, 
the mirthful, witty, convivial companion; yet 
full of quick and generous sympathy with every 
taste, provided it include somewhat fresh and 
natural ; and above all, ever armed with indig- 
nation for the oppressed against the oppressor. 

Moore and De Beranger have been frequently 
compared, and in truth they have many attri- 
butes in common. Both have attained (whether 
by natural genius, or perfectioned art) to that 
wonderful clearness and facility in metrical com- 
position, which we admire in the elegiac poets of 
the Augustan age, Ovid especially. 

Both have appealed in the range of their 
works to the sympathies of many classes. The 
Politico- Satirical poems of both have been ap- 
preciated by all who felt (a position we are now- 
a-days none the worse for being reminded of,) 
that the cause of freedom was more efficiently 
advocated by the weapons of polished wit and 
cutting satire, than coarse and declamatory invec- 
tive. Their sentimental songs (and here Moore 



FROM DE BERANGER. 7 

has the pre-eminence bothin number and quality) 
have been sung by all young gentlemen and 
ladies from the ages of seventeen to twenty -five, 
and have become as much the language of the 
tender passion as ever was the flower alphabet 
in eastern climes. Their convivial and free-and- 
easy songs (and here per contra the French 
chansonnier has an overwhelming majority,) have 
been adored in meetings where mirth and good 
fellowship abound, and have added times out of 
mind an extra charm to the circling glass. Both 
have occasionally risen to the sublime in thought 
and diction; witness De Beranger's " Sainte al- 
liance des Peuples," and "Les Enfans de la 
France," and Moore's well known lines on the 
termination of the Neapolitan revolution of 
1821, beginning "Aye down with them, dastardly 
slaves as they are ;" of these — the former for a 
grand simplicity of diction, the latter for thrilling 
and impassioned vigour, it would be difficult to 
surpass. As instances of pathos, in each, we 
may give Moore's lines "When first I met thee," 



8 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

and "La pauvre femme," and "Les etoiles," 
which has been so hacknied in quotation. 

But as poets for the people the parallel ceases ; 
in spite of all Moore's ardent feelings and real at- 
tachment to his country, the Irish peasants would 
have little or no sympathy with the refined, not 
to say effeminate, graces which abound in his me- 
lodies. De Ber anger can be homely and forcible, 
and speak plainly when he chooses — not so the 
Irish poet. Ireland has never had its Beranger ; 
a song writer like him would have been as pow- 
erful as O'Connell. But to hear the airs of his 
country in the drawing room dress, which Moore 
has thought proper to clothe them in, would have 
seemed as strange to the quick but uncultivated 
Irishman, as if one of his Norahs or Kathleens 
had been shown him, in costume "en regie" at 
Almack's. 

The Epicurean chansons of our author are 
very diversified in their character ; some are as 
French and frisky in their animal spirits as the 
first glass of a bottle of champagne. Others are 



FROM DE BER ANGER. 9 

epicurean after a fashion which we meet with in 
Horace and other classics, imbued with a deep 
searching gaiety (if we may be allowed the 
term,) which to our fancy has always a vein of 
melancholy in its composition. It seems the 
offspring of a vigorous mind exerting its powers 
against some antagonist force ; we meet with this 
frequently in the epicurean philosophy of the 
ancients, which seemed to cherish the thought 
of extinction, which in spite of the smile of 
beauty, and the wine cup wreathed with flowers, 
was, it knew, inevitably to close the scene. 
Perhaps the classic writers of this school, with 
their fine conception of Artists, deemed the 
gloom thus produced, available as an effective 
contrast with its sombre tints* to the more glow- 
ing colours of the picture. 

And undoubtedly an eternity even of refined 
sensualism would have few attractions for the 
active mind of man, which delights in change 
and contrast, both in the physical and moral 
world. 



10 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

To this certainty, however of death, they took 
pleasure in opposing the fall array of earthly 
enjoyments, and those better pleasures which 
borrow something from the finer portions of our 
nature. 

At other times we have merely the categories 
of a jolly life to oppose to the great enemy. 
The contrast is effective as a piece of art, and 
the gaiety imposing, though melancholy enough 
in its reckless energy, to our fancy, which after 
all was perhaps the effect intended. And in 
this spirit is the following song conceived. 

LE JOUR DES MORTS. 

1. 

Amis, entendez les cloches, 

Qui, par leurs sons gemissants, 
Nous font de bruyants reproches 

Sur nos rises indecents. 
II est des ames en peine, 

Dit le pretre interesse. 
C'est le jour des morts, mirliton, mirlitaine, 

Requiescant in pace. 



FROM DE BER ANGER. 11 

2. 
Qu'en ce jour la poesie 

Seme les tombeaux de fleurs ; 
Qu'a nos yeux 1' hypocrisie 

Les arrose de ses pleurs. 
Je chante au sort qui m'entraine 

Sur les traces du passe ; 
C'est le jour des morts, mirleton, mirlitaine ; 

Requiescant in pace. 

3. 

Mediants, redoutez les diables, 

Mais qu'il soit un paradis 
Pour les filles charitables, 

Pour les buveurs francs amis ; 
Que St. Pierre aux gens sans haine 

Ouvre d'un air empresse, 
C'est le jour des morts &c, 

Requiescant in pace. 

4. 
Le Souvenir de nos peres 

Nous doit il mettre en souci ? 
lis ont ri de leurs miseres 

Des notres rions aussi. 



12 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

'Lise n'est point inhumaine ; 

Mon flacon n'est casse; 
C'est le jour &c, 

Requiescant in pace. 

5. 
Je ne veux point qn'on me pleure, 

Moi, le boute en train des fous, 
Puisse-je a ma derniere heure 

Voir nos fils plus gais que nous. 
Q'ils chantent a perdre haleine 

Sur le bord du grand fosse ; 
C'est le jour &c., 

Requiescant in pace. 

vol. i. p. 104, 



THE DAY OF THE DEAD. 

1. 

Hark! the tolling bell, my friends, 
Which seems to reproach our mirth, 

And its hoarse reproof it sends 
To our gaiety here on earth. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 13 

Remember the souls in pain, 

Says the priest, believe him who will ! 

Tis the day of the dead, mirliton, mirlitaine, 
And in peace may they slumber still ! 

2. 
Let poesy yield her flowers 

To strew o'er the tombs of the dead, 
And hypocrisy's tears in showers 

Above their graves be shed : 
My muse leaves this scene of pain, 

To excurse o'er the realms of the past. 
'Tis the day of the dead, mirliton, mirlitaine. 

May their slumber unbroken last. 

3. 

The churlish, hell may fear, 

But oh ! let a paradise be, 
For ladies not over severe, 

And for all jolly company. 
To friendship without a stain 

Let heaven's gate open wide, 
'Tis the day of the dead, mirliton, mirlitaine, 

And in rest may they still abide. 



14 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

4. 

Need a thought of our ancestors' woes 

With sadness cloud our brow ? 
They were wont to laugh at those, 

And shall we not smile at ours now? 
Our wine cup sheds its rain, 

Our mistress is not unkind, 
'Tis the day of the dead, mirliton, mirlitaine, 

And eternal repose may they find. 



5. 
When I die let no one weep, 

But oh ! in that day may I see 
That our sons a gay festival keep, 

And surpass us in revelry — 
Let them sing with might and main 

On the brink of that gulph so wide, 
'Tis the day of the dead, mirliton, mirlitaine, 

And in rest let them still abide. 

As a contrast to this reckless gaiety, we will 
take the following chanson, where a simple idea 
is ornamented, yet not overpowered by a variety 
of allegorical embellishment. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 15 



LE COMMENCEMENT DU VOYAGE. 

Chanson chantee sur le berceau d'un enfant nouveau-i 

1. 

Voyez, amis, cette barque legere, 

Qui, de la vie, essaie encore les flots : 
Elle contient gentille passagere, 

Ah! soyons-en les premiers matelots. 
Deja les eaux l'enlevent au rivage, 

Que doucement elle fuit pour toujours ; 
Nous qui voyons commencer le voyage, 

Par nos chansons egayons en le cours. 



2. 
Deja le sort a souffle dans les voiles ; 

Deja l'espoir prepare les agres, 

Et nous promet a 1' eclat des etoiles, 
Une mer calme et des vents doux et frais. 

Fuyez, fuyez, oiseaux d'un noir presage : 
Cette nacelle appartient aux amours. 

Nous qui voyons commencer le voyage 
Par nos chansons, &c. 



16 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

3. 

Au mat propice, attachant leurs guirlandes, 
Oui, les amours prendent part au travail, 

Aux chastes soeurs on a fait des offrandes, 
Et l'amitie se place au gouvernail. 

Bacchus lui meme anime l'equipage 
Qui des plaisirs invoque le secours; 

Nous quivoyons, &c. 

4. 

Qui vient encore saluer la nacelle 1 

C'est le Malheur benissant la Vertu, 
Et demandant que du bien fait par elle 

Sur cet enfant le prix soit repandu; 
A tant de veux dont retentit le plage, 

Surs que jamais les Dieux ne seront sourds; 
Nous qui voyons commencer le voyage 

Par nos chansons, egayons enle cours. 

VOL. Is 83. 



THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE VOYAGE. 

Sung at the cradle of a new-born Infant. 
1. 
Behold of infancy this fragile bark, 

At length adventuring life's troubled sea, 



FROM DE BERANGER. 17 

A lovely freight it bears, and mindful mark, 
Its earliest pilot, let our friendship be. 

Already from the bank its course to plough, 
And never to return, the waters bear ; 

Be ours, who witness its departure now, 
"With mirthful song its onward course to cheer. 

2. 
Already destiny breathes in the sail, 

And hope the tackling for the voyage prepares, 
And promises, if ought its power avail, 

A sea that's tranquil, and propitious airs. 
Avoid, ill omened birds ! the slender prow, 

The loves alone have right of passage here. 
Be ours who witness its departure now, 

With mirthful song its onward course to cheer, 

3. 

The loves attach their garlands ttf the mast, 

And in our grateful labour deign to share ; 
To the chaste sisters offerings have been cast, 

And friendship takes the helm with kindly air. 
Bacchus himself smiles gaily at the prow ; 

Summoned by him, the pleasures hasten near. 
Be ours who witness its departure now, 

With mirthful song its onward course to cheer. 



18 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

4. 

Who comes at length, our slender bark to bless ! 

Misfortune, supplicating Virtue's aid ; 
Aud that in price of undeserved distress, 

Prosperity upon this infant's head be laid — 
Sure to such wishes, heaven itself must bow, 

And to our prayers grant a propitious ear — 
Be ours, who witness its departure now, 

With mirthful song its onward course to cheer. 

We will next take a gay little chanson, where 
the vein of irony that runs through many of the 
poet's mirthful productions, is open and palpable. 
It is an epicurean stave, showing also that wis- 
dom and a bald pate are not always coincident. 
— But let the gay old gentleman speak for him- 
self. 



MES CHEVEUX. 

Mes bons amis, qui je vous preche a table, 

Moi, I'apotre de le gaite, 
Opposez tous, au destin peu traitable 

Lerepos et laliberte. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 19 

A la grandeur, a la richesse, 

Preferez des loisirs heureux; 
C'est mon avis, moi de qui la sagesse 

A fait tomber tous les cheveux. 

2. 

Mes bons amis, voulez vous dans le joie, 

Passez quelques instants sereins, 
Buvez un peu; c'est dans levin qu'on noie 

L' ennui, l'humeur, et les chagrins — 
A longs flots puisez l'allegresse 

Dans ces flacons d'un vin mousseux, — 
C'est mon avis, moi de qui la sagesse 

A fait tomber tous les cheveux. 

3. 

Mes bons amis, et bien boire et bien rire, 

N'est rien encore sans le*s amours. 
Que la beaute vous charme et vous attire, 

Dans ses bras coulez tous vos jours! 
Gloire, tresors, sante, jeunesse, 

Sacrifiez tout a ses veux. 
C'est mon avis, moi de qui la sagesse 

A fait tomber, &c. 



20 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

4. 

Mes bonsamis, du sort et del'envie f 
On brave ainsi les traits cuisants. 

En peu de jours usant toute la vie, 
On en retranche les vieux ans. 

Achetez la plus douce ivresse 
Au prix d'un age malheureux, 

C'est mon avis &c. 



vol. 1. 45. 



MY HAIR. 

When at table I tell you, my friends, to be gay, 

You have called me of mirth the apostle, — 
For I counsel, live freely and snug while you may, 

And with destiny strive not to jostle. 
To the wealth of the rich, and the pomp of the great, 

Prefer living cozy at leisure — 
'Tis the counsel I give, who now show my bald pate, 

From indulgence in wisdom, not pleasure. 

2. 
My friends, would you pass in the bosom of mirth, 

A few moments of sweetest employment — 
Then drink! — 'tis in wine that this pleasure has birth, 

And we drown all that mars our enjoyment. 



EROM DE BERANGER. 21 

Aye drink ! there's concealed in each sparkling glass, 

A gaiety scorning measure ; 
'Tis the counsel I give, all whose hairs, alas! 

Are fallen from wisdom, — not pleasure. 

3. 
But of wine, and of mirth, the delights will not last, 

If from passion your pulse be calm; 
On the bosom you love, may your hours be past, 

And its power never cease to charm. 
Aye give up to its wishes health, youth, and renown, 

At its feet pour forth your treasure. 
'Tis the counsel I give, who, I blush not to own, 

Am grown bald from wisdom, — not pleasure. 

4. 

With envy and fortune against us, my friends ! 

'Tis thus their assaults we defy — 
Our spring all the force of our lives expends, 

Let the autumn neglected lie ! 
Then the full tide of passion let roll while it may, 

In old age we'll repent at leisure — 
'Tis the counsel I give, who am now bald and grey, 

From indulgence in wisdom, not pleasure. 

But perhaps Le Grenier is one of the most 



22 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

pleasing of our author's songs. It has a sim- 
plicity that charms, and, in one stanza at least, 
a vigour that inspires. 

LE GRENIER. 
1. 

Je viens revoir l'asile ou ma jeunesse 

De la misere a subi les lecons. 
J'avais vingt ans, une folle maitresse, 

De francs amis, et 1' amour des chansons. 
Bravant le monde, et les sots et les sages, 

Sans avenir, riche de mon printemps, 
Leste et joyeux, je montais six etages, 

Dans un grenier, qu'on est bien a vingt ans. 

2. 

C'est un grenier, point je veux qu'on 1' ignore 

La fut mon lit bien chetif et bien dur; 
La fut ma table, et je retrouve encore 

Trois pieds d'un vers charbonnes sur le mur. 
Apparaissez plaisirs de mon bel age, 

Que d'un coup d'aile a fustiges le temps; 
Vingt fois pour vous j'ai mis ma montre en gage 

Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 23 

3. 

Lisette ici doit surtout apparaitre, 

Vive, jolie, avec un frais chapeau; 
Deja sa main a l'etroitre fenetre 

Suspend son schall eu guise de rideau. 
Sa robe aussi va parer ma couchette; 

Respecte, Amour, ses plis longs et flottants, 
J'ai su depuis, qui payait sa toilette 

Dans un grenier &c. 

4. 
A table un jour, jour de grande richesse, 

De mes amis les voix brillaient en chseur, 
Quand jusqu'ici monte un cri d'alegresse : 

A Marengo, Bonaparte est vainqueur! 
Le canon gronde: un autre chant commence, 

Nous celebrons tant de faits eclatants. 
Les rois jamais n'envahiront la 'France ; 

Dans un grenier &c. 

5. 
Quittons ce toit oii ma raison s'enivre 

Oh! qu'ils sont loin ces jours si regrettes ! 
J'echangerais ce qu'il me reste a vivre 

Contre un des mois qu'ici Dieu m'a comptes. 



24 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Pour rever, gloire, amour, plaisir, folie, 
Pour depenser sa vie en peu d' instants 

D'un long espoir pour la voir embellie, 

Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans. 
vol 2.-248. 



MY GARRET. 

Once more I've viewed the home where youth's gay 
hours 

Of poverty could charm away the sting. 
At twenty, blest with love's most fragrant flowers, 

With joyous friends — a heart and voice to sing, 
Careless of all without — the fools, the wise, 

Careless of future, in my spring's first glow, 
Gaily I gained my garret near the skies, 

Worth all the salons I had left below ! 

2. 
'Twas in a garret, nought I blush to own, 

There was my humble couch, my table's place. 
And there, to woo the muse my ardour grown, 

My first rude verses on the wall I trace. 
Appear, ye pleasures of my early age, 

Which Time's stern hand has long since put to 

7 %ht ' / +J / ' 

/ / / J&ya-fsL 



FROM DE BERANGER. '4 

3. 

Appear, Lisette, my own, my early love — 

A bonnet ga}^ sets off her smiling face — 
Ah ! see, she mounts the window's small alcove, 

A curtain 'gainst the world her shawl to place. 
Her robe upon my couch abandoned lies ! 

Respect, love, each long and pliant fold. 
Since then I've known who paid her toilette's price: 

The secret was not in my garret told. 

4. 

One day my festive board my friends surround, 

Their joyous voices mix in mirth uproarious, 
When to my garret mounts the welcome sound, 

Napoleon at Marengo is victorious — 
The cannon roar ; responsive, to the skies 

Our voices chaunt our country's fresh renown; 
Never shall foreign despots France despise! 

'Twas in my garret, happy, all my own. 

5. 
But quit this scene, where reason's sway is o'er; 
What distance now divides me from that day! 
How gladly would I barter years in store, 

Against one month that there I passed so gay. 

c 



26 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Dreaming of glory, lore, and pleasure's madness, 
My life compressing in few moments' span, 

With hope to gild the future o'er with gladness, 
How happy here my youth's life current ran. 



We must not omit all mention of Beranger's 
free and easy songs, such as " Les Demoiselles/' 
"Fretillon," "Magrandemere," " Le Senateur," 
cum multis aliis. The best way of considering 
them is, perhaps, (and it may with truth be 
said) that there is more free speaking with less 
palpable violation of decency than we could have 
believed possible. Of course we cannot defend 
altogether this class of lyrical effusions ; but let 
any Englishman recollect the songs he has com- 
monly heard at mixed convivial parties, and 
turning from these mostly dull, pointless, and 
often abominably coarse productions to the witty 
and elegant effusions of the French chansonnier, 
and be as severe a censor as he likes. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 27 

In casting our eye over the first volume of 
Beranger's works, we are astonished at the ex- 
hibitions of versatility which its contents present. 
What variety, merely in rhythm and metre ; and 
in subject what a range between " Le commence- 
ment du voyage," and "Fretillon." 

We have many favourites in this volume, and 
perhaps " L'age firtur" is as piquant as any ; all 
its predictions too have turned out tolerably cor- 
rect, with the exception of our belligerent pro- 
pensities. But before we pass on to the more 
serious songs, we will endeavour to render into 
English a spirited little epicurean trifle, which 
gives us, almanack-wise, rules of life for the year 
round. 



LE PRINTEMPS ET L'AUTOMNE. 

1. 
Deux saisons reglent toutes choses 
Pour qui sait vivre en s'amusant. 
c 2 



28 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Au Printemps nous devons les roses, 
A l'automne, un jus bienfaisant. 

Les jours croissent, le coeur s'eveille, 
On fait le vin quand ils sont courts. 

Au printemps adieu la bouteille ! 
En automne adieu les amours ! 



Mieux il vaudrait unir sans doute 

Ces deux penchants faits pour charmer; 

Mais pour ma sante je redoute 
De trop boire et de trop aimer. 

Or, la sagesse me conseille 
De partager ainsi mes jours; 

Au printemps adieu &c. 

3. 
Au mois de Mai j'ai vu Rosette, 

Et mon cceur a subi ses lois 
Que de caprices la coquette 

M'a fait essayer en six mois — 
Pour lui rendre enfin la pareille, 

J'appelle Octobre a mon secours. 
Au printemps &c. 



FROM DE BER ANGER. 29 

4. 

Je prends, quitte, et reprends, Adele, 

Sans facon, comme sans regrets. 
Au revoir en jour, me dit elle, 

Elle vient long-temps apres. 
J'etais a chanter sous la treille, 

Ah! dis-je l'annee a son cours. 
Au printemps &c. 

Mais il est une enchanteresse, 

Qui change a son gre mes plaisirs; 
Du vin elle excite l'ivresse, 

Et maitrise jusqu'aux desirs. 
Pour elle ce n'est pas merveille 

De troubler l'ordre de mes jours, 
Au printemps avec la bouteille, 

En automne avec les amours. 

Vol. 1. 24,25. 



SPRING AND AUTUMN. 

1. 

Two seasons rule his hours 

To the man who's expert in enjoyment 



30 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

To Spring we owe the flowers, 

In Autumn, to drink's our employment. 

Love expands with th' increasing day, 
With wine we beguile the night. 

Adieu to the bottle in May ; 

In autumn our love takes flight. 



'Twould be better no doubt to unite 

Two such charming recreations — 
But prudence enjoins to slight 

Of both, the joint temptations; 
At her counsel, my wishes I bring, 

My life between them to share; 
Adieu to the bottle in Spring, 

In Autumn good bye to the fair. 



'Twas in May that I first saw Rose — 
Was her willing slave all the summer; 

With each novel caprice that she chose 
I complied — and I never knew rummer! 

But October comes in to my aid, 
And now my revenge I take; 



FROM DE BER ANGER. 31 

Spring for thee, my dearest maid, 
'Tis now, our thirst to slake. 

4. 
Adele's chains I most easily wore, 

For my heart had no interest here ; 
I'll meet you to-morrow, she swore — 

She came after half a year. 
Oh! my fair one, 'twas my turn to say, 

(The vintage was then in its prime) 
Love making's a good thing in May, 

But now for drinking's the time. 

5. 
But there's one, who each chord of my heart, 

At her magical touch can control. 
She, fresh charms e'en to love can impart, 

And enhance the delights of the bowl. 
She my purpose can easily move 

To change all my plans of employment; 
In Spring with the bottle make love, 

And in Autumn the self-same employment. 

A pleasant thing is wine, and mirth, and good 
fellowship, and the "tender offices of love ;" 
pleasant whether enjoyed in London or Paris, 



32 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

or in the sunny clime of Italy, and thousands 
will continue to think so, and act accordingly, 
to the end of the chapter of human destiny- 
But the more these goods are indulged in, so as 
to form the stay of our lives, the more will the 
apparition of death, with his huge extinguisher, 
become irksome and disgusting. Thus, as we' 
have said before, our epicureans erect a barrier 
of jollity and song against the great enemy. 
But though we succeed in putting him at a 
distance, Youth is not the less escaping from 
our grasp, and age will continue its gradual but 
inevitable approaches, even after a dinner at the 
Bocher de Cancale, or an evening at Tivoli, 
where all seems fresh, and vigorous, and bloom- 
ing as the morning of hope ; hence the necessity 
for throwing up another line of fortifications — 
and the following beautiful ballad seems, to our 
fancy, to say all that can be said in mitigation 
of the decline of Youth. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 33 

LA VIEILLESSE. 

1. 

Nous verrons le temps qui nous presse, 

Semer les rides sur nos fronts. 
Quoi qu'il nous restede jeunesse, 

Oui, mes amis nous vieillerons. 
Mais a chaque pas voir renaitre 

Plus de fleurs qu'on ne peut eveillir, 
Faire un doux emploi de son etre, 

Mes amis, ce n'est pas vieillir. 

2. 
En vain nous egayons la vie 

Par le champagne et les chansons; 
A table oii le coeur convie 

On nous dit que nous vieillissons. 
Mais jusqu'a sa derniere aurore, 

En buvant frais s'epanouir. 
Meme en tremblant, chanter encore 

Mes amis, ce n'est pas vieillir. 

3. 
Brulons nous pour une coquette, 
Un encens d'abord accueilli, 

c5 



34 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Bientot peut-etre elle repete, 

Que nous n'avons que trop vieilli, 

Mais vivre en tout d'economie, 
Moins depenser et mieux jouir— • 

D'une amante faire une amie, 
Mes amis, ce n'est pas vieillir. 

4. 

Si longtemps que Ton entretienne 

Le cours heureux des passions. 
Puis qu'il faut qu'enfin l'age vienne 

Qu' ensemble au moins nous vieillissions — 
Chasser du coin qui nous rassemble 

Les maux prets a nous assaillir — 
Arriver au but tous ensemble, 

Mes amis, ce n'est pas vieillir. 

Vol. 1. 158. 



OLD AGE. 



From the time that is passing o'er us, 

In our brows see fresh furrows have sprung, 



FROM DE BERANGER. 35 

And tho' still merry days lie before us, 

We feel we no longer are young. 
But as onward we travel, to see 

Fresh flowers around us unfold, 
In each year yet more happy to be, 

My friends! this is not to grow old. 



'Tis in vain that our lives with cheer, 

And wine, and song, we've cherished; 
At the social board we hear 

That our youthful bloom has perished , 
But e'en to our latest waking 

O'er the wine-cup to freshly expand- 
Still to sing, tho' our frame be shaking - 

Old age is not surely at hand. 

3. » 

Some frolicksome fair one, perchance, 
We are labouring still to charm, 

But our beauty replies by a glance, 
That love not as in youth is warm; 

But to live so as less to expend, 

And yet more to enjoy, if we're sage- 



36 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Of a mistress to make a friend — 
Oh! this cannot be surely old age. 

4 
And when all our loves are past 

And their course has been long and sweet; 
Since old age must come at last, 

Together its grasp we'll meet. 
From our snug fire-side in bad weather, 

We'll the ills that assail us assuage, 
And arrive at the bourne together ! — 

Oh ! my friends say is this old age ? 

Perhaps none of the poet's compositions 
breathe a more kindly spirit than " La Bonne 
Vieille." His " old age" points out the 
alleviations to be found in the approaches 
of physical decay, and concludes with the 
common, but not on that account less 
beautiful, thought, that our community of fate 
(embodying the principle of social relation,) can 
take away its sting even from death itself. 

Arriver au but tous ensemble, 

Mes amis ce n'est pas vieillir. 



FROM DEBERANGER. 37 

In the chanson that follows, the force of affection 
and sympathy is carried still further. A beloved 
object is left behind, yet a gentle feeling of 
melancholy only is called forth: and this even 
is soothed by a conviction of the sympathy 
which the survivor will feel for her departed 
friend. It is a pure and touching strain, in 
which the modern growth of sentiment contrasts 
with the classed epicureanism of some other of 
the author's productions. We attempt with some 
diffidence to render into English 

LA BONNE VIEILLE. 

1. 
Vous vieillirez, O ma belle maitresse ! 

Vous vieillirez, et je ne serai plus. 
Pour moi, le temps semble, dans sa vitesse, 

Compter deux fois les jours que j'ai perdus. 
Survivez moi ; mais que l'age penible 

Vous trouve encore fidele a mes lecons ; 
Et bonne vieille au coin d'un feu paisible, 

De votre ami repetez les chansons. 



38 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

2. 

Lorsque les yeux chercheront sous vos rides, 

Les traits charmans qui m'auront inspire, 
Des doux recits les jeunes gens avides 

Diront quel fut cet ami tant pleure? 
De mon amour peignez, s'il est possible, 

L'ardeur, l'ivresse, et meme les soupcons : 
Et bonne vieille, au coin d'un feu paisible, 

De votre ami repetez les chansons. 

3. 
On vous dira : Savait il etre aimable 1 

Et sans rougir vous direz : Je l'aimais, 
D'un trait mechant se montra-t-il capable 1 

Avec orgueil vous repondrez — Jamais. 
Ah dites bien qu'amoureux et sensible, 

D'un luth joyeux il attendrit les sons, 
Et bonne vieille, &c. 

4. 
Vous que j'appris a pleurer sur la France, 

Dites surtout aux fils des nouveaux preux 
Quej'ai chante la gloire et 1'esperance 

Pour consoler mon pays malheureux. 
Rappelez leur que l'aquilon terrible, 

De nos lauriers a detruit vingt moissons, 
Et bonne vieille, &c. 



FROM DE BERANGER . 39 

4. 

Objet cheri, quand mon renom futile 

De vos vieux ans charmera les douleurs, 
A mon portrait quand votre main debile 

Chaque printemps suspendra quelques fleurs, 
Levez les yeux vers ce monde invisible 

Ou pour toujours nous nous reunissons : 

Et bonne vieille, &c. 



THE OLD FRIEND. 

1. 
Oh yes ! my lov'd one, time will o'er thee creep, 

Old age will come when I shall be no more, 
And twice for me doth time his reck'nings keep, 

And twice I mourn the years he's counted o'er. 
Mayst thou survive : but oh ! may time's stern hand 

Still leave thee as thou wert in youth to me, 
While to my songs around thy hearth, a band 

Of list'ning friends shall e'er attentive be. 

2. 
And when of thee the anxious gaze enquire 

Where were the charms that fed his ardent flame ? 



40 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Thy youthful friends in circle round thy fire, 
Shall ask of him that thou hast loved to name. 

Paint of my passion, if thou canst recall 
The force, the eargerness, the jealous fear, 

And by thy cheerful hearth while listen all, 

Give them once more thy lover's strains to hear. 

3. 
Yes ! they will ask thee could he touch the heart ? 

Without a blush thou' It answer — Him I lov'd ; 
And did he ne'er in malice bear a part ? 

No, thoul't reply, I ne'er such conduct proved. 
And tell them too, how with a lover's skill, 

He from the lute could draw its tend' rest strain ; 
And, lov'd one, by thy hearth reposing still 

The songs he cherished mayst thou chant aagin. 

4. 

Thou whom I taught to weep o'er France's woes, 

Proclaim unto the children of the brave, 
That once my song of hope and glory rose, 

My best lov'd country to console and save. 
And tell them too, how war's terrific blast 

Crush' d down the laurelled wreaths of many 
year ; — 
Beside thycheerful hearth, recall the past, 

And let them now my loftiest measure hear. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 41 

5. 

And oh, my lov'd one, when my poor renown 

Shall charm away the sorrows of thy age, 
And when, each spring, with trembling hand thoul't 
crown 

My bust with flowers that seem thy grief t'assuage, 
Then lift thine eyes towards that world on high 

Where re-united we shall ever be, 
And by thy hearth, a tear-drop in thine eye, 

Repeat thy lover's songs, and think of me. 



If we have not been grossly inattentive to the 
counsels of our author, we have by this time 
learnt how to drink and sing, and make love 
in a town, and no despicable knowledge is this. 
We will now, by way of change, give what may 
be stiled a "pastorale amoroso," or manual of love 
making in the country; and a very pleasant 
thing it seems to be, always supposing fine 
weather and other agremens. 

LES CHAMPS. 

1. 

Rose, partons ; voici l'aurore — 
Quitte ces oreillers si doux — 



42 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Entends tu la cloche sonore 

Marquer l'heure du rendezvous. 

Cherchons loin du bruit de la ville 
Pour le bonheur, un sur asyle — 

Viens aux champs couler d'heureux jours, 
Les champs ont aussi leurs amours. 

2. 
Viens aux champs fouler la verdure, 

Donne le bras a ton amant, 
Rapprochons-nous de la nature, 

Pour nous aimer plus tendrement. 
Des oiseaux la troupe eveillee 

Nous appelle sous la feuillee, 
Viens aux champs couler d'heureux jours, 

Les champs ont aussi leurs amours. 

3. 

Nous prendrons les gouts du village, 

Le jour naissant t' eveillera, 
Le jour mourant, sous le feuillage 

A notre couche nous rendra. 
Puisse tu, maitresse adoree, 
Te plaindre encore de sa duree ? 
Viens, &c. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 43 



4. 

Quand l'ete, vers un sol fertile 

Conduit les moissonneurs nombreux; 

Quand pres d'eux la glaneuse agile 
Cherche l'epi du malheureux, 

Combien sur les gerbes nouvelles, 

De baisers pris aux pastourelles. 
Viens, &c. 

5. 
Quand des corbeilles de l'automne 

S'epanche a flots un doux nectar, 
Pres de la cave qui bouillone 

On voit s'egayer le vieillard — 
Et cet oracle du village 
Chante les amours d'un autre age. 
Viens, &c. 

6. 
Allons visiter les rivages 

Que tu croiras des bords lontains. 
Je verrai sous d'epais ombrages 
Tes pas devenir incertains — 
Le desir cherche un lit de mousse, 
Le monde est loin, 1'herbe est si douce ! 
Viens, &c. 



44 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

7. 
C'en est fait! — adieu, vains spectacles — 

Adieu, Paris, oh. je me plus — 
Ou les beaux arts font des miracles, 
Oii la tendresse n'en fait plus — 
Rose, derobons a l'envie, 
Le doux secret de notre vie. 
Viens, &c. 

Vol. 1, 242. 



THE FIELDS. 

1. 
Oh fly! my Rose, in morning's prime: 

Your downy couch you now must leave ; 
The church-clock sounds the appointed time. 
The hours to rapture we will give. 
Far from the city let us stray, 
Where happiness points out the way — 
Then in the country let us rove, 
The fields shall teach us how to love. 



The softest turf our feet shall press, 
Whilst thou upon my arm art leaning; 



FROM DE BERANGER. 45 

We'll feel all nature's tenderness, 
And by our love explain its meaning. 
Beneath yon foliage quick repair, 
The birds with song invite us there — 

Then in the country let us rove, 

The fields shall teach us how to love. 

3. 
That simple life be ours to share, 
At break of day awakened rise ! 
And to onr welcome couch repair, 
At evening when the sunlight flies. 

Would'st thou, my dearest, wish them less, 
These long sweet hours of tenderness — 
Then in the country let us rove, 
The fields shall teach us how to love. 

4 
When summer to the harvest fieTd 

In crowds the joyous rustics sends — 
And to descry if ought it yield, 

The gleaner still her labour spends; 
Oh then upon the sheafs fresh shaken, 
How many rustic kisses taken; 
Then in the country let us rove, 
The fields shall teach us how to love. 



46 



TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 



5 

The vintage crowns the peasant's board, 

Th' inspiring juice abundant flows; 
Nigh to the tun with nectar stored, 

The old man's voice more cheery grows; 
While round the rustics watch his eye, 
He sings the loves of years gone by; 
Then in the conn try let us rove, 
The fields shall teach us how to love. 

6. 
And when t' explore some peaceful glade 

Along the river's banks we wander, 
I'll see beneath th' embowering shade 
Thy steps decline, thy look grow fonder— 
The world is far — the turf we press, 
How sweet, my love, the fond caress; 
Then in the country let us rove, 
The fields shall teach us how to love. 

7. 
Tis done — adieu the show — the glare — 

Paris without regret I leave — 
Here art has all of rich and rare, 

But tenderness has naught to give. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 47 

Then quick, my Rose, quick let us fly, 

Our love disdains the vulgar eye; 
Then in the country let us rove, 
The fields shall teach us how to love. 



But how far is Beranger from being merely an 
epicurean songster, who adds a charm to the 
sunny hours of youthful enjoyment, and con- 
soles us feelingly for their loss. Most eminently 
and truly he is the poet of the people ; all his 
sympathies are for the people's pleasures and 
the people's rights. Looking at his works in 
reference to this their popular tendency, we shall 
observe an admirable consistency throughout. 
Whether in his hearty appreciation of all that 
can conduce to their social happiness in its most 
extended sense, or in his indignant appeals 
against specific acts of tyranny and bigotry, or 
again in his never -failing recurrence to the 
people's favourite pastimes, we shall trace an 
admirable unity of purpose. De Beranger 's 
career has laid in eventful times ; he has seen 



48 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

France under almost every form of government. 
In his boyhood, a witness of the capture of the 
Bastile, (which, after forty years, he celebrated 
in a spirited lyric effusion ;) his youth passed 
under the Empire, with its dazzling train of 
military glory abroad and military despotism at 
home ; in his maturity, witnessing the downfall 
of Napoleon— the hundred days, so rich in 
political apostacy — the restoration of the Bour- 
bons, and the dawning hopes of France crushed 
by the collapse of increasing kingly and priestly 
tyranny for fifteen years. He was himself 
incarcerated for a second time in 1829, by one 
of the last acts of the miserable despotism of 
Charles X. ; and at length he saw the three days 
of July, and celebrates this great event in one of 
his latest productions. But it is to the restora- 
tion that his writings properly belong ; they 
embody the outpourings of the national gaiety 
released after long wars to taste the blessings of 
peace ; they embody too all that caustic satire 
which can exist only under an unpopular govern- 



FROM DE BERANGER. 49 

rrient. To tyranny we owe the most spirited 
efforts of the satiric muse. 

Of Beranger's entire works, which may be 
purchased in three volumes for five francs, (pro- 
bably, considering their excellence and variety, 
the cheapest of all contemporary literature,) the 
first volume is remarkable for its mixture of 
humour, fancy, and pathos ; and as it is the pri- 
vilege of this gifted writer to appeal to the sym- 
pathies of nearly all classes of readers, the young 
and convivial will find here their favourite mor- 
ceaux ; his great principle of popular advocacy 
must be sought for rather in the general hearti- 
ness of sympathy with the pleasures of the 
people, than in any resistance to specific acts of 
tyranny. Towards the end of the volume, (the 
second published portion of his works,) a vein 
of acute political satire begins to make itself 
felt, witness " La Sainte Alliance Barbaresque," 
" Les Capucins," &c. This attains its full 
developement in the second volume, which will 
be the favourite, probably, with all to whom 



50 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

cutting sarcasm, clothed in polished wit, and 
where the indignant sympathies of the man are 
at times veiled by the satirist's perception of the 
ludicrous, are their favourite ground. 

The most piquant of these political satires 
have been already translated, and are as familiar 
as household words to the English reader. " Les 
infinitement Petits," for example, will be a bye- 
word against all imbecile tyrannies, whether of 
kingship, priestcraft, or aristocracy, to the end 
of all human institutions. " Le Diable est 
mort," will apply to all mischief-making poli- 
tical priests, equally with the rampant Jesuits of 
that day, in their full-blown insolence of reac- 
quired power. 

" Octavie," a model of satirical allegory, and 
which has something strangely fascinating to our 
minds in its very rhythm and diction, must have 
been a tremendous hard hit at the time. If we 
mistake not, it is the same royal favourite who 
figures in a spirited scene (that at the church of 
St. Roch) in Janin's clever novel, " Le chemin 



FROM DE BEE, ANGER. 51 

de traverse." " Le convoi de David," admirably 
translated in Father Prout's relics, and " Le 
tombeau de Manuel," (the author's most valued 
friend,) are admirable for their generous sym- 
pathy with the cause of freedom ; and in u Les 
Enfans de la France," the author soars above 
his accustomed level into a sublimity of thought 
and diction not unworthy of the highest efforts 
of the lyric muse. " Le Grenier," of which 
we have attempted the translation, " Le Temps," 
" Les Filles," a charming sportive ballad, 
" Les etoiles qui filent," and " Le Pigeon 
Messager," also included in Father Prout's spe- 
cimens, are among the most agreeable of the 
miscellaneous pieces of the second volume. 

But perhaps the matured reader will find the 
most complete lyrical specimens in the third and 
concluding volume. There is less exuberance 
of fancy, less dash of gaiety and animal spirits, 
but abundant vigour, and a chastened maturity 
of judgment befitting the age and experience 
of the writer. " Jeane la Eousse " is as simple 

d 2 



52 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

and fresh in its ruralism as one of Words- 
worth's ballads. " Mon Tombeau," an admi- 
rable blending of the sportive and serious in 
thought ; " Le Nostalgie " condenses the fate of 
thousands of young and ardent spirits who have 
been engulphed, along with their hopes, in the 
whirlpool of a great capital. And the capture 
of the Bastille, dated in its fortieth anniversary 
from the prison of La Force, to which his free 
speaking in the cause of liberty, and redoubtable 
powers as a writer, had consigned Beranger, is 
not unworthy of the great event it commemo- 
rates. We fear the vigour and freshness of this 
spirited composition will sadly evaporate in our 
translation; but claiming this indulgence, we 
cannot conclude this notice without attempting 

LE 14 JUILLET. 

La Force, 1829. 
Pour un captif, souvenir plein de charmes ! 

J'etais bien jeune ; on criait : Vengeons nous ! 
A la Bastille ! aux amies ! vite aux armes ! 

Marchands, bourgeous, artisans, couraient tous. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 53 

Je vois palir et mere et femme, et fille — 
Le canon gronde au rappels du tambour: 

Victoire au peuple ! il a pris la Bastille : 
Un beau soleil a fete ce grand jour, 
A fete ce grand jour. 

2. 
Enfans, vieillards, riche oupauvre, on s'embrasse; 

Les femmes vont redisant mille exploits. 
Heros du Siege, un soldat bleu qui passe, 

Est applaudi des mains etde la voix; 
Le nom du roi frappe alors mon oreille, 

De la Fayette on parle avec amour, 
La France est libre, et ma raison s'eveille. 

Un beau soleil, &c. 

3. 
Le lendemain, un vieillard docte et grave, 

Guida mes pas sur d'immenses debris. 
Mon fils, dit il, ici d'un peuple esclave, 

Le despotisme etouffait tous les cris. 
Mais des captifs pour y loger la foule, 

II creusa tant au pied de chaque tour, 
Q'au premier choc le vieux chateau s'ecroule. 

Un beau soleil, &c. 



54 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

4. 

" La Liberte rebelle antique et sainte, 

Mon fils, s'armant des fers de nos aieux, 
A son triomphe appelle en cette enceinte, 

L'egalite qui redescend des cieux. 
De ces deux sceurs la foudre gronde et brille, 

C'est Mirabeau tonnant contre la cour, 
Sa voix nous crie : ' Encore une bastille!' 

Un beau soleil, &c. 

5. 
" Oii nous semons chaque peuple moissonne 

Deja vingt rois au bruit de nos debats 
Portent tremblants la main a leur couronne, 

Et leurs sujets de nous parlent tout bas, 
Des droits de l'liomme ici Tere fecondc: 

S'ouvre et du globe accomplira le tour, 
Sur ces debris, Dieu cree un nouveau monde, 

Un beau soleil, &c. 

6. 
De ces lecons, qu'un vieillard m'a donnees 

Le souvenir dans mon cceur sommeillait. 
Mais je revois, apres quarante annees, 

Sous les verroux, le quartorze Juillet. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 55 

O Liberte! mavoix, qu'on veut proscrire, 

Redit ta gloire aux murs de ce sejour. 
A mes barreaux l'aurore vient sourire; 
Un beau soleil fete encore ce grand jour, 
F&te encore ce grand jour! 

Vol. iii.— 43. 



THE 14th JULY. 

1. 

Oh! sweet remembrance to a captive's mind, 
In youth I heard that cry to vengeance! rise; 

To the Bastille! to arms! arms let us find! 
All Paris at that call obedient flies! 

Pale grew the women, mother, wife, and child — 
Mixed with the drums appeal the cannons' roar: 

The fortress fell, the conquering people smiled; 

A glorious sun that day has gilded o'er, 
That day has gilded o'er. 

2. 

The young, the old, the rich and poor embrace, 
A thousand exploits crowd the oft told tale; 



56 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

The blue-clad soldier, * as he passed the place, 
With hand and voice the exulting people hail. 

Touching the king, how many voices roll; 
Of La Fayette the people speak yet more : 

My country's freedom dawns upon my soul. 
A glorious sun that day has gilded o'er, 
That day has gilded o'er. 

3. 
The morrow came — an aged man my guide, 

I wandered o'er the ruin's shapeless size. 
"'Twashere, my son," he said, "that tyrants tried 

To stifle all a suffering people's cries. 
Here, to contain the captive's long array, 

Beneath each tower fresh prison cells they bore; 
Thus at the first assault the walls give way. 

A glorious sun that day has gilded o'er, 
That day has gilded o'er. 

4. 
" But Liberty, whom none could e'er enslave, 
Forging her armour from our fathers' thrall, 

* The Garde -Francaise had joined the people in great num- 
bers, and were of material service in the seige. 



FROM DE BERANGER. 57 

Summons Equality her cause to save, 

Who comes from heaven obedient to the call, — 

With thunder armed these sisters wage the fight; 
'Tis Mirabeau, with giant voice before, 

'What still,' he cries, f this dungeon blasts our sight.' 
A glorious sun that day has gilded o'er, 
That day has gilded o'er. 

5. 

" The seed here sown, the world at large shall reap, 

All despots tremble at this people' s voice, 
And vainly strive their tottering crowns to keep, 

Their subjects inly at our deeds rejoice. 
The banner of the rights of man, unfurled, 

O'er the wide globe shall float for evermore. 
God from these ruins shapes a new-formed world." 

A glorious sun that day has gilded o'er, 
That day has gilded o'er/ 

6. 

These lessons, by the old man's voice instilled, 
Within my heart have long-time slumbering lay; 

But now, of forty years the course fulfilled, 

Through prison bars, once more I hail this day. 

D 5 



58 TRANSLATED SPECIMENS 

Oh, Liberty! my voice, proscribed, shall swell, 
And in thy praise above this dungeon soar. 

The morning light dawns in my prison cell; 
Again the sun this day is gilding o'er, 
This day is gilding o'er. 



Ere another year's July had passed, a month 
doubly memorable in the annals of France, and 
of freedom, the tyranny which incarcerated the 
poet w r as as completely levelled with the dust as 
the ruins of the Bastille. And now we take 
leave of Beranger : who could criticise with 
carping minuteness a man like him? whose 
mirthful strains appeal to all who love the social 
pleasures of life, and whose attachment to 
liberty, and exertions for, and sympathy with 
the people's cause, through a long and not un- 
chequered career, demand the deeper and 
graver admiration of every friend of freedom. 

May his old age be as happy, as exempt 
from care, and as fully crowned with the 
kindly sympathies of his friends, his country- 



FROM DE BER ANGER. 59 

men, and the generous spirits of all countries, 
as he has himself described, in his beautiful 
lines : — 

"Mesamis, ce n'est pas vieillir ! " 
December, 1837. 



REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS OF 
MONSIEUR DE BALZAC. 

Perfectly unbiassed criticism may be ex- 
pected to prevail somewhere about the time of 
the Millenium ; meanwhile, the lovers of truth 
and fair discussion may be thankful for every 
exposure of that which is notoriously biassed 
and false. It is a literary dictum, the triteness 
of which amounts nearly to a truism, that in 
the repuolic of letters all local barriers are 
abolished — that here there exists no arbitrary 
division of country or climate : a successful 
author is at once welcomed by the whole society. 
Yet actually there are many drawbacks on the 



62 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

working of the principle. Even when national 
prejudice is extinct, varieties in national taste 
interpose between an author and the full ac- 
knowledgement of his talent by contemporary 
judgment. All this, being inevitable, it would 
be unwise to expend our lamentations upon it ; 
reserving, rather, our indignation for instances 
of wilful misrepresentation, and unblushing 
sacrifice of truth to the prejudices of the writer. 
Unhappily we need not travel far in order to find 
an antagonist who fulfils these conditions. To 
give one instance, in the bitter article on popu- 
lar works of fiction in contemporary French 
literature, which appeared some time ago in the 
Quarterly Review, with what restless anxiety 
the writer turns from the alleged immorality of 
the works on which he sits in judgment, to trace 
back this evil to the three days, and the over- 
throw of the paternal government of Charles X. 
The object of the following criticism is to 
render justice to an author, who, although en- 
joying a brilliant reputation across the channel, 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 63 

has been treated with marked injustice by our 
British literary public. The Quarterly Review 
closes a meagre and shallow criticism nearly in 
these words : — iC Monsieur de Balzac never had 
any taste, and his shallow vein of talent is now 
worked out."* Now, to express our sense of 
the excessive injustice of this remark, we will 
not merely enter on a laudatory critique on M. de 
Balzac's works, but will quote freely from them, 
thus bringing the question of their talent or 
worthlessness at once fairly before the public. 
In pursuing this course, we are, perhaps, going 

* It is true that this sentence was preceded by some, ex- 
pressing a qualified approbation, such as "M. de Balzac is 
occasionally eloquent," &c; but these laudatory scraps were 
intended, it would seem, only to render the critical damnation 
in conclusion more entire. We have called the critique in 
question by hard names ; we think it unfair, for this reason 
among others, — the little stories which make up the scenes ot 
Parisian, Private Life, &c, slender as they are, as narratives, 
are analysed by the reviewer, merely as such, and the plots 
given, without often a word as to the theories on society, &c. 
embodied in them, and which are generally the vital, inform- 
ing part of these slender structures. 



64 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

over what is beaten ground with many ; yet if, in 
any instance, we can remove a prejudice, or 
lead to the perusal of a gifted writer, we shall 
forgive ourselves this repetition. The Quarterly 
has taken up its position; it stands committed 
before the literary public of Europe, as ad- 
vancing the above opinion on M. de Balzac, 
and our literature must share, in some degree, 
the consequences attached to the opinions of a 
leading review. Let it not be said that no 
voice has been raised in behalf of truth, and the 
recognition of a man of genius. In entering 
our protest against the criticism in question, we 
are anxious not to run into the opposite extreme 
of laudatory extravagance. We will at once 
admit that the morality of some few of M. de B.'s 
works is questionable enough, and that his 
opinions on many social points, marriage for 
instance, (though less prominently advanced 
than in Sand's novels) are at variance with the 
established sentiments of society ; yet, after all 
these deductions, how wide an interval remains 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 65 

before we adhere to the unqualified censures of 
the review. From the estimate there given of 
his talents we, of course, entirely dissent.* 

But the criticism of the Quarterly is not the 
only injustice that M. de Balzac has received 
from us. Mr. H. Bulwer, in his " Monarchy of 
the Middle Classes/' gives certain garbled ex- 
tracts from the Peau de Chagrin, in which 
portions of that work, ridiculous enough, cer- 
tainly, without the clue of the context, are held 
up to notice, as specimens of one of the most 
popular works in what he calls " French light 
literature." In the chapter in question, pas- 
sages from a number of popular fictions are run 
into one-another, without the least connection ; 

* Since the above was written, partial justice has been ren- 
dered to Monsieur de Balzac, in an article on " The philosophy 
of Fiction," (London Review, April, 1838). With the enlarged 
and liberal spirit of that article we heartily concur ; but from 
the number of authors it professes to review (nothing less than 
the body of contemporary French fiction) not more than a 
page is allotted to De Balzac. Without any disparagement of 
his numerous and talented contemporaries, we think his works 
well deserve having a separate article devoted to them. 



66 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

and then Mr. Bulwer triumphantly asks us, "Is 
this sensible, coherent composition ? " It would 
be just as fair in a French writer on our literature 
to dovetail the ravings of Lear into a quotation 
from Maturin's Melmoth, and then ask if 
Shakspeare was not overrated in his native 
country. 

It is always unpleasant to differ from a lady, 
especially so agreeable a writer as Mrs. Trollope ; 
but in her book on Paris, she evidently gets 
beyond her depth. In her critiques on contem- 
porary French literature, M. de Balzac, among 
others, comes off but poorly ; her opinion of the 
Peau de Chagrin is curious, and if true, would 
save considerable time to the reader who is 
entering on the first page. " I will not enter," 
says she, " into a critical examination of its 
merits, as I cannot conceive time to be occupied 
more unprofitably." She then, a far easier 
task, quotes and misinterprets a portion of the 
preface. The following sentence, "Eniin le 
temps present marche si vite, le vie intellectuelle 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 67 

deborde partout avec tant de force, que plu- 
sieurs idees sont vieillis pendant que l'auteur 
imprimait son ouvrage," according to Mrs. T.'s 
interpretation/proves conclusively the ephemeral 
nature of the work, instead of the attempt, at 
least, of the author to embody the shifting 
characteristics of modern society. 

M. de Balzac is a prolific author, but we 
shall not examine all his works in detail, neither 
shall we go through the divisions in which they 
have been classed, as to their subject matter, 
by an extravagantly laudatory French critic, 
M . Davin. It will be sufficient for our purpose 
to examine four of M. de Balzac's principal 
fictions, viz., The Peau de Chagrin, The Scenes 
of Parisian, of Provincial, and of Private Life, 
introducing the reader to his peculiar style, by 
occasional quotation. 

We have no acquaintance with M. Balzac, 
beyond that derived from his writings ; we have 
no claims of partizanship to fulfil in opposing 
his depreciators, beyond the promptings of truth 



68 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

and fair play, and our gratitude for the pleasure 
we have derived from his works. And not 
merely pleasure ! — brilliant and sparkling as are 
the creations of his fancy, we should not, for a mo- 
ment, think of classing them under the head of 
light literature: most of them result from the deep 
meditations of a philosophic mind on the con- 
stitution of society. We will commence, then, 
by giving an analysis of the Peau de Chagrin, 
reserving, for the present, our estimate of the 
peculiar powers of the author. 

The scene opens (appropriately enough, in a 
work which deals chiefly with social life in its 
perverted forms) in the Palais Koyal. Raphael, 
the hero, enters a maison de jeu in that ce- 
lebrated locality, and loses his last stake. There 
is much in the treatment of the entire scene, at 
once characteristic of the author, and intro- 
ductory to the general scope of the work. To 
the former belong the fanciful analogies, sug- 
gested by the rule which compels every person 
to surrender his hat, on entering one of these 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 69 

establishments j and above all, the elaborate por- 
traiture of the " human antithesis," which these 
apartments present.* In these passages we see 
an endeavour to trace back the movements of 
society to their first principles, and to disclose 
the under-current of motive, in the wildest ca- 
prices of human action. And these we shall 
find are favorite points throughout M. de Bal- 
zac's works. Introductory to the scope of this 
particular fiction, a startling portion of modern 
life is placed before our eyes ; " last stage in the 
eventful history " of thousands who have played 
a brilliant part on the theatre of society ; it is 
the downward passage — the step before the 
plunge, which divides the glittering course of 
youthful pleasure from the gulph of ruin, 
despair and suicide. Our author's portraiture of 
this painful scene has all the minute fidelity of 
Hogarth ; the style and diction are pointed and 
vigorous. As an example we may mention the 

* This article was written before the houses were closed 
by the French government. 



70 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

effect produced even on the hardened inmates of 
this den of vice, by the unutterable misery de- 
picted on the countenance of Raphael. 

His last step in the career of life being finished, 
nothing remains but the last resource of suicide ; 
he determines however to postpone the catas- 
trophe till the shades of night shall envelope his 
end in their kindred gloom. Life — the life of 
any man, apparently the most insignificant, has 
been called " the most indubitable poem ;*' con- 
sidered, that is, as a revelation of human nature, 
beside which all fictions appear poor and incom- 
plete. Somewhat analogous to this idea, is the 
following passage : — 

II y a, je ne sais quoi de grand et d'epouvant- 
able dans le suicide. Dans la vie, les chutes 
d'une multitude de gens sont sans danger, conrme 
celles des enfans qui tombent de trop bas pour se 
blesser ; mais quand un homme se brise, il 
doit venir de bien haut, s'etre elevee dans les 
cieux, avoir entrevu quelque paradis inacessible. 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 71 

" Implacable doivent etre les ouragans qui nous 
forcent a demander la paix de l'ame a labouche 
d'un pistolet. Que de jeunes talens s'etiolent 
confines dans une mansarde, * * * en pre- 
sense d'une foule lassee d'or, et qui s'ennuie. A 
cette pense le suicide prend des proportions gi- 
gantesques. Entre une mort voluntaire, et la 
feconde esperance, dont la voix appelle un jeune 
homme a Paris, Dieu seul sait combien il y a de 
chefs d'ceuvre avortes ; de conceptions de poesie 
depensees; de desespoir, de cris etoufFes, de 
vaines tentatives ! Chaque suicide est un poeme 
sublime de melancolie. Ou trouverez vous dans 
l'ocean des litteratures un livre surnageant qui 
puisse hitter de genie avec ces trois lignes ? 
" Hier a quatre heure une jeunne femme s'est 
jetee dans la Seine, du haut du Pont des Arts." 
Devant ce laconisme parisien, les drames, les 
romans, tout palit." 

Peau de Chagrin, vol. i. p. 49-50. 

The natural close, we fear, is self destruction 



72 REVIEW OF THE WHITINGS 

to a life of selfish gratification; the instrument is 
worn out, and remains but to be broken. Some- 
times, we would hope not often, irremediable 
misfortune conducts to the same end. In these 
and their combined cases, the egotisms of society- 
have at once their denouement and their victims. 
And the contemplation of society under these 
perverted phases is certainly favourite ground 
with M. de Balzac. 

An extraordinary scene follows. To wile away 
the last hours of his life, famine already raging 
at his vitals, Raphael enters a Magazine of Anti- 
quities, where are collected all of rare and curious, 
that ancient and modern art can furnish. The 
effect of this vast museum of mingled loveliness 
and horror and quaintness, on the physical ina- 
nition and wandering brain of the unhappy man, 
is minutely described. The excursive nature of 
the subject gives ample scope for the author's opi- 
nions on a variety of topics. Of this he is not 
slow in availing himself, but drives his intellec- 
tual omnibus over the wide world, ancient and 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 73 

modern. Take as an instance the following 
eulogium on Cuvier. 

"M. Cuvier, n'est ilpasle pins grand poete de 
notre siecle ? Lord Byron a bien reprodnit par 
des mots quelques agitations morales ; mais 
notre immortel naturaliste a reconstruit des 
mondes avec des os blanchis, a rebati, comme 
Cadmus, des cites avec des dents, a repeuple 
mille forets avec quelques fragmens dehouille, a 
retrouve des populations de gens dans le pied 
d'un mammoth." — Peau de Chag. i. 74. 

The presiding genius of the scene, the wizard 
of the enchanted cave, is now introduced to our 
notice ; a shrivelled old man, o,f whom a descrip- 
tion too lengthy to quote, is given ; he displays 
to Raphael a portrait of Christ, the description 
of which, though beautiful, we omit for the same 
reason. 

The Peau de Chagrin, a talisman conferring 



74 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

the "unlimited gratification of the wishes, at the 
price of a decrease of vital power, exactly pro- 
portionate to their frequency and intensity, is at 
length offered to, and accepted by Raphael. 
This magical investiture of the hero brings to a 
natural close, what may be considered as the 
first portion of the work. Raphael has now 
ceased to be a man living the ordinary life of 
mortals; struggling with the wants of human 
nature^ and dependant on his own exertions for 
their gratification ; he is henceforth elevated 
above, yet not separated from the world, for the 
ultimate moral of the entire work goes to prove 
the supremacy of society, or the external world, 
over the energies of an individual will, however 
powerful. The history of his past career is sub- 
sequently given as a narrative ; but this is antici- 
pating — we now turn to his first exercise of his 
newly acquired power — to his first wish. This 
has nothing romantic or sublime in its concep- 
tion ; it is not for empire or fame, or. the social 



OF M. DE BALZAC. iO 

happiness of millions, but for a banquet and 
soiree, each perfect of their kind, and where 
one excitement terminates only by the introduc- 
tion of a newer and more potent charm. This 
is in strict accordance with another sentiment of 
our author. " Eien ne se denoue poetiquement 
dans la nature." 

Let those who are inclined to sneer at the 
grovelling choice of De Balzac's hero, recollect 
that he had lived a life of perpetual excitement, 
alternate luxury, and all but starvation, and that 
after his whole constitution, physical and moral, 
had been unhinged by the pleasures, famine had 
now its pangs in his vitals. If -any think he 
would have made a wiser choice, let him first 
descend from his vantage ground of social posi- 
tion, let him abdicate his throne of ease and 
plenty, let him, after fulfilling the other condi- 
tions we have named, lose his last stake at play, 
meditate suicide, and then under the pressure 
of starvation, obtain the talisman. 

E 2 



76 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

But the Peau is no vulgar engine of super- 
natural machinery ; it is a type of human destiny 
in its high and palmy state, sublime in its con- 
sciousness of power, yet subjected to the condi- 
tions of mortality ; it is the vouloir and pouvoir 
united — the intensity of passion and the 
energy of the will, with the reaction and ulti- 
mate destruction which are then necessary 
heritage. 

Raphael's first wish is speedily accomplished. 
In issuing from the door of the Magazine, where 
he has obtained the talisman, he is saluted by 
three of his most intimate companions. These 
congenial spirits explain, that a journal having 
been lately established, in furtherance of the 
political views of their party, a banquet, or feed, 
as we should call it, initiatory to the select few, 
conciliatory to the public, is about to be given, 
at the mansion of a celebrated banker. Our hero, 
as a bon vivant, homme d'esprit, mauvais sujet, 
fast liver, in short, is associated with the party. 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 77 

A witty, but somewhat free dialogue between 
the friends, introduces us to the banquet ; and 
here, who would venture to dilute the admirable 
descriptions of our author? the attempt would 
be as sacrilegious as to infuse what is called (on 
the lucus non lucendo principle) the pure element 
(as if the second-hand distillation of our sewers 
could rival in purity the choicest growths of 
Burgundy and the Rhine) into a bowl of punch, 
just after the admixture of green tea. 

Suffice it to say, it is the best and politest 
drunken scene we ever met with. 

But as " Amurath to Amurath succeeds," — 
yet not so, for a mightier than Amurath is here — 
the banquet ushers in the soiree, where all the 
previous revelry fades before the intoxicating 
brilliancy of the scene. "Pleasures," says 
Bulwer, speaking of the noctes of King George 
IV., of jo vial memory, "where sense lavished its 
uncounted varieties ; revellings where wine was 
the least excitement." And here we have the 



78 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

picture in the most glowing colours. Lucretius 
has left us his invocation to Venus Genetrix ; 
Horace, Ovid, Tibullus, and a host of minor 
classics, have contributed their quota to adorn 
the gallery of the voluptuary ; but in this style 
of painting, we will back De Balzac against the 
field. Excursing through, by -gone ages, let us 
impanel a jury of masters in the art of pleasure; 
Petronius Arbiter, stand thou first on the list — 
let Thomas Little close the illustrious array. The 
soiree merges into an orgy, revelry is drowned in 
clamour : Raphael in his cups, gets what bon- 
vivants would call his second wind, and by way 
of finish, gives us the history of his life. In 
this retrospective narrative, the history is brought 
up to the period at which we had previously 
arrived — viz., the accomplishment of the first 
wish consequent on the acquisition of the 
talisman. 

Educated under the surveillance of a rigid 
father, Raphael passed his youth in a forced ab- 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 79 

stinence from the pleasures of Paris. At the 
age of twenty-two he was left an orphan ; and 
here commence his struggles with the world. 
His feelings at this period are thus described : — 
"Mon ame sans cesse arretee dans ses expansions , 
s'etait repliee sur elle meme ; et plein de fran- 
chise, de naturel, je devais paraitre froid, dis- 
simule. Le despotisme de mon pere m'ayant 
ote toute confiance en moi, j'etais timide et 
gauche. * * * * Malgre la voix interieure 
qui doit soutenir tous les hommes de talent 
dans leurs luttes, et qui me criait Courage — 
Marche— -"— i, 190. 

The bashfulness attendant on an ardent and 
powerful mind, possessing nearly every know- 
ledge but that practical acquaintance with the 
world, that happy audacity, for which it would 
willingly barter all the rest, is skilfully anato- 
mized by our author. A state of feeling is this, 
well nigh sublime in its ignorance, and to 
which the gens biases may well look back with a 



80 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

regretful feeling, intertwined as it is with the 
vivid sensations of youth. Like most men who 
have little actual success in love, Raphael sighs 
for the ideal, and continually falls back on 
such gloomy reflections as the following : — 

" Oh ! se senter ne pour aimer, pour rendre 
une femme bien heureuse, et ne pas avoir trouve 
meme une courageuse et noble Marceline * * * 
porter des tresors dans une besace, et ne pouvoir 
rencontrer meme une enfant, quelque jeune fille 
curieuse pour les lui faire admirer." — i, 194. 

But his feelings soon undergo a change ; 
wounded vanity stamps his deportment with a 
decided air; in learning to despise the world he 
obtains the first insight into the materials of 
success. 

The following remarks, which embody a good 
deal of worldly shrewdness, are not over compli- 
mentary to the fair sex. 

" Le femmes sont habituees, par je ne sais 
quelle pente de leur esprit, a ne voir dans un 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 81 

homme de talent que ses defauts ; et dans un 
sot que ses qualites ; alors elles eprouvent des 
grandes sympathies pour les qualites du sot, 
qui sont une flatterie perpetuelle de leurs pro- 
pres defauts ; tandis que l'homme superieur ne 
leur offre pas assez d'avantages pour compen- 
ser ses imperfections. Le talent est une fievre 
intermittente, et nulle femme n'est bienjalouse 
d'en partager seulement les malaises." — i, 198. 

The view here taken of the female character 
forms no inapt introduction to the Countess 
Fsedora, "la femme sans coeur," who gives a name 
to this portion of the work. This we consider 
as the most elaborate portrait of a heartless co- 
quette in modern fiction ; every detail is most 
carefully wrought, and strictly accessary to the 
entire effect, j And here we are led to mention a 
favorite position of our author, that view, namely, 
of society in masses, which almost trenches on 
the sphere of political enquiry ; and when, as 
in the case before us, his single portraits stand 

e 5 



8*2 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

out in bold individuality, in these he sees too 
the types of a class, and is in haste to shift his 
position to a gregarious view. '• La femme sans 
coeur" is not merely the portrait of a coquette, 
but a personification of coquettery and egotism. 
It is as if M. de Balzac mapped out Paris, his 
world of human nature, and then indicated 
each division of this world by a single mark ; Fa> 
dora, then, represents the province of coquettery. 

Raphael, ambitious, poor, talented, — at war 
with destiny — yearning for an object on which 
to vent his impassioned longings, is introduced 
to the salon of the Countess Faedora, the adored 
of all Paris, and whom no lover has yet been 
able to subdue. Here is a field for the ambition 
of an ardent mind ; he sets all his energies to 
the task, and is himself soon bound up, soul 
and body, in the success of the enterprise. 

There is, to our mind, something grand and 
affecting, in the collision of these opposing na- 
tures ; it partakes at once of the pathetic and the 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 83 

sublime. We see the man of genius, lavishing 
all his treasures of intellect and passion, on this 
barren wilderness ;_ he dashes himself to atoms 
against the icy barrier of immovable egotism. 
The picture is grand from its moral antithesis 
alone ; but above all it is admirable for the depth 
to which it probes into the very core of so- 
cial life. 

These antagonist impersonations, the finished 
coquette — the passionate youth, typify a hun- 
dred conflicts daily taking place around us, 
though the opposing characteristics may not be 
so strongly developed. Yet, who does not sym- 
pathise with Raphael's vain efforts to achieve 
the impossible, to arouse a passion where there 
exist no responsive materials to feed the flame. 
And the denouement of this contest is strictly 
natural ; an inferior artist would have made his 
hero triumph, in good-natured obedience to the 
wishes of the reader. De Balzac, in accordance 
with nature, makes him yield to the superiority 



84 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

of the non-resisting force with which he is in 
hostility. The quotation of individual passages 
would mar the completeness of this scene ; but 
other matters are touched upon. Raphael, in 
his humble chamber, (where, before he glittered 
in the salons of the Countess, he used to devote 
his hours to solitary study) is attended on by a 
sweet young creature, Pauline ; who feels for 
him about as hopeless a passion as he is cherish- 
ing for Fadora. The following description of a 
student's chamber is not without its beauties. 

" Le calme, et le silence necessaires au savant, 
ont je ne sais quoi de doux, d'enivrant comme 
l'amour. L'exercise de la pensee, la recherche 
des idees, les contemplations tranquilles de la 
science, nous prodiguent d'ineffables delices, 
indescriptibles comme tout ce qui participe de 
1'intelligence dont les phenomenes sont invisi- 
bles a nos sens exterieurs; aussi sommes nous 
toujours forces d'expliquer les mysteres de 
l'esprit par des comparaisons avec la matiere. 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 85 

Ainsi le plaisir de nager dans un lac d'eau pure, 
au milieu des rochers, des bois, des fleurs, seul, 
car esse par une brise tiede, donnerait aux igno- 
rans une bien faible image du bonheur que 
j 'eprouvais quand mon ameetait baignee dans les 
lueurs de je ne sais quelle lumiere, quand 
j'ecoutais les voix terribles et confuses de l'inspi- 
ration, quand les images ruisselaient d'une source 
inconnue dans mon cerveau palpitant. Oh! 
voir une idee pointant dans le vide des abstrac- 
tions humaines, comme le lever du soleil au 
matin, s'elevant comme lui, jetant des rayons, 
* * * est une joie egale aux autres jois terres- 
tres, ou plutot un divin plaisir, puis l'etude prete 
unesorte de magie a tout ce qui nous environne." 
i.-21t). 211. 

But the curtain falls on the solitary student — 
it rises on the Parisian roue. Driven to des- 
peration by the cold selfishness of Fsedora, 
Raphael attempts to stifle his passion amid the 
pleasures of Paris. He takes his degree with 



86 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

promptitude, as Lord Byron said, in all the 
fashionable vices. His farewell scene with the 
Countess Faedora is very highly finished. It 
gives the last outpourings of impetuous pas- 
sion, powerless, of course, against the impene- 
trable barrier of selfish egotism. 

The elaborate portrait of " lafemme sans coeur" 
is now completed. In installing Raphael in his 
new career, the author gives us a singular 
chapter, which may be styled the commen- 
dation of debauch. This may rank, in depth of 
saturnine humour, with that quaint old English 
book, Cornwaliis's Encomiums. To suppose it 
anything but ironical in its drift, is a palpable 
absurdity ; but it must be confessed, that there 
breathes throughout a lurking kindness for the 
" large vie " of dissipation it describes. It may 
not here be irrelevant to say a few words on the 
alleged immorality of M. de Balzac's writings. 

Immorality in books may be divided into two 
great heads. First, the presenting vivid sensual 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 87 

images to the reader, and exciting what are 
technically (in the world's jargon) called the 
passions, as if Inst were the only one de- 
serving that name. Secondly, the giving such a 
cynical view of life, as leads us to think worse 
of human nature and our species than they de- 
serve, and to tolerate vice because we despair of 
virtue. There are few who mix in the world, 
who have not heard gentlemen of this school 
(which is rather popular in our day, for reasons 
we shall mention hereafter) support their theo- 
ries by varied and ingenious arguments. The 
class is well typified in the following sketch of 
one of De Balzac's roues. — 

"II professait au sujet de tous les caprices une 
parfaite indifTerance, et les croyoit justifies par 
cela meme qu'ils se pouvaient satisfaire." 

The first is generally backed by the practical 
sophistry of supposing any essential novelty in 
sensual enjoyments. Man, it is true, is ever 
striving to be original in his pleasures, but he is 



88 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

for ever chained down by the sameness of sen- 
sation. 

The moralist may deduce naturally enough 
herefrom, the essentially low and confined nature 
of sensual enjoyments, — the moral antipodes of 
the arts and sciences, of all that progressively 
refines and liberalizes society ; these at once at- 
tain their full growth ; and successors in the 
pursuit are compelled, by the nature of the sen- 
sations they recognise as their only good, to 
tread in the self-same round. There are no such 
inveterate mannerists and copyists as your volup- 
tuaries ! 

All probably that can be done to enhance the 
charm by calling in the imagination to the aid of 
the senses, and investing by the force of indivi- 
dual genius, the gross actual with the rainbow 
hues of the ideal, has from time to time found its 
place in the literature of voluptuous epochs ; 
and on this count, though we cannot hold M. 
de Balzac entirely acquitted, though some addi- 
tional flowers to deck this gaudy wreath may b< 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 89 

culled from his writings, yet barring those passa- 
ges which are evidently ironical, we should not 
name the sensual as a decided characteristic of 
his works. But neither is this, we think, the 
prevalent character of an epoch of high civilization 
like our own. The immorality of its literature 
will belong rather to our second count. That is 
to say, reflection on the weaknesses and vices of 
human nature, as well in private life and indivi- 
dual instances, as in the hypocrisy and rotten- 
ness of many plausible public institutions, will 
lead, as we have said, to a strong caustic satire, 
to an almost cynical view of human life and social 
institutions. That this view of mankind includes 
a lapse of morality (which must retain some be- 
lief in virtue, and be hopeful as to the destinies 
of our species) few will be disposed to deny. 

"With this defect, many of M. de Balzac's 
works might be justly chargeable, depicting as 
they do, society under its most perverted forms, 
were it not for the sweet portraits of all that is 
most virtuous in our nature which are also scattered 



90 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

throughout. If then his writings be considered, 
as they justly may, as dwelling much on the dark 
and evil, let it not be said that he leaves the rea- 
der without their natural counterpoise. We shall 
recur to instances of this, when considering the 
scenes of provincial and private life. 

To return from this digression. The dissipa- 
tions of Raphael ere long find their natural close ; 
the laws of nature must be obeyed ; " 'tis the 
pace that kills" is dictated by immutable truth, 
and comes home to the Parisian roue : his de- 
cline and fall are rapid ; he has recourse to the 
usual routine of expedients adopted by young 
gentlemen of large ideas, and small purses, and 
this gives opportunity for the introduction of a 
very forcible chapter on the miseries of debt, 
which all must agree to be highly moral in its 
drift, and well worthy the attention of all young 
men about town. 

Play resuscitates our hero for a time, but at 
length his last stake is lost. The narrative is 
thus brought up to the period at which the 



OF M. DE .BALZAC. 91 

action commences ; a word as to the way in 
which it is managed. 

All men of convivial experience well know how 
long winded and prosy gentlemen will occasion- 
ally become on these occasions ; we think we 
can remember to have witnessed (" horrescimus 
referentes,") what de Balzac calls ec a debauch of 
words/' which lasted some two or three hours : 
yet stilly a narrative of the length here given, 
which occupies nearly half of the entire work, it 
must be confessed, somewhat outrages probability. 
It occurs too, be it remembered, after a protracted 
banquet, soiree, &c, allowing for which it would 
certainly have lasted till the dejeuner hereafter 
recorded. 

But all things have an end, sayeth the sage, 
and though a prosy fellow, Raphael at last finishes 
his story, and after a drunken altercation with 
his friend, sinks to repose. 

Our ancestors, hard-headed port-soakers they, 
were accustomed to say, that though the operation 



92 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

of getting drunk was rather agreeable than other- 
wise, getting sober was the devil ! But the in- 
novating spirit of modern times has attacked even 
this relic of ancestral sagacity, though it must 
be confessed we do not so often put it to the test. 
And Byron, in his commendation of the matutinal 
" draught of hock and soda water," throws all his 
weight into the opposing scale. 

De Balzac, however, as a novelist, may be ex- 
cused for a leaning to the glittering antithesis of 
contrast, that most potent engine of his art; and 
he gives us his waking scene, in which all the 
actors, with one exception, are sufficiently seedy 
to stand out in most complete and gloomy relief 
against the brilliant extravagance of the preced- 
ing orgy. If truth be here (and we pronounce 
no decided opinion on this knotty point) at all 
sacrificed to effect, we would forgive the trickery 
of authorcraft, for the home pathos of the follow- 
ing passage. The feelings of some of the females 
who form part of this motley group, are thus 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 93 

described on their awaking amidst the remains of 
last night's dissipation. 

"Malgreleur habitude du vice, quelques unes 
de ces jeunes filles penserent a lenr reveil d' 
autrefois, quand, innocentes et pures, elles en- 
trevoyaient, par leurs croisees champetres ornees 
de chevrefeuilles et de roses, un frais paysage, 
enchante par les joyeuses roulades de l'alouette, 
vaporeusement illumine parleslueurs de l'aurore, 
et pare des faintaisies de la rosee. 

D'autres se peignirent le dejeuner de la 
famille, la table, autour de laquelle riaient inno- 
cemment les enfans et le pere, ou tout respirait 
un charme indennissable, ou les mets etaient 
simples comme les coeurs." — ii, 96. 

As a picture, surely this is perfect in its way ; 
do we not see before us that fresh and rural 
home, and the fantastic wreaths of mist that half 
veil the morning landscape, and within that 
casement a vision of maiden purity and joy, so 
that we can lap ourselves in the sweet calm of all 
around, and forget for a moment the vice and 



94 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

misery of the actual world, the hard real drama 
of life, its denouement and its victims. 

Butlo ! the scene is changed ! — and amid the pro- 
fuse luxury of that Parisian salon, amid the debris 
of the protracted orgy, in those still lovely, though 
haggard forms, where the canker of dissipation 
is fast stealing over the rose of early beauty pre- 
maturely blighted, do we not perceive the entire 
physical and moral antithesis between their pre- 
sent and their past? 

But no intense emotion can be unbroken in 
its duration; — the deepest remorse even, is not, 
as some suppose, an uninterrupted avenue of 
cypress, with a tomb to close the prospect — it 
has its intervals of sunshine ; there are moments 
when the animal spirits rise again ; and true to 
nature is the scene, where these regretful retro- 
spections are merged in the jest and clamour of 
the renewed orgy. 

We forgot to mention that in his cups over- 
night, Raphael is liberal to excess in his wishes; 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 95 

iii fact he works the poor peau de chagrin like 
a Hampstead donkey. He now finds too late his 
error; he is become Marquis de Valentin, with 
a large revenue, occupying an apparently en- 
viable position in society, but with spirits, ener- 
gy, and all that gives the power of enjoyment, 
decreasing in an exact ratio with the contraction 
of the talisman. " L'agonie " is the title of 
the concluding portion of the work, and most 
appropriate is the term; exquisite and protracted 
is the torture, yet mindful of the principle before 
mentioned, the author gives us breaks of sun- 
shine, amidst all this desolation of spirit ; and by 
a fine touch of art, the transient happiness which 
Raphael enjoys, becomes the engine of his future 
torment. He meets Pauline — the Pauline of 
his humble days — the faithful attendant of the 
student's chamber — now resplendent with beauty, 
the adored of all Paris — but still cherishing her 
love for him. He is now awakened to a reci- 
procation of her passion, and for a brief space 



96 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

they are happy. His rencontre with Pauline 
takes place at the opera ; the same scene gives 
us the punishment of Fsedora, who for the first 
time feels the bitter pangs of mortified vanity in 
seeing the public homage transferred to the rising 
beauty. But short indeed is the happiness of 
Raphael; he awakes to a full consciousness of the 
value of life, now endeared by a reciprocation 
of the sympathies. Viewed by the light of his 
successful passion, all appears brilliant, but this 
brilliancy he knows must speedily be quenched 
in the darkness of the tomb. With each wish, 
and how many now crowd on one another, the 
talisman on which his life depends is moulder- 
ing away. We have now the extraordinary 
spectacle of a man struggling against the wishes 
that are consuniing his life ; but how vain the 
attempt ! — fate, destiny, the compact, really the 
external pressure of the social system, crush to 
atoms the energies of his individual will, — he is 
absolutely powerless. And how exquisite the 
torture of this protracted decay. 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 97 

His last wish is for Pauline, and in its accom- 
plishment he expires. — Who would not linger 
over the beauty of the passage which describes 
the sleeping Pauline, p. 204 — 206. It is, however, 
too long for quotation. 

And now in casting a retrospective glance 
over this extraordinary work, the question irre- 
sistibly occurs, what is the scope and purpose of 
the whole ? Are all the troubled elements of 
which it is made up, part and parcel of the 
author's mind, or given as necessary features in 
the portrait he would draw. The first supposi- 
tion is refuted by those simple and touching nar- 
ratives which we owe to the same hand. The 
second leads us necessarily to say a few words 
on the view of society here given. It is at an 
epoch of the highest civilization; all the social 
corruptions too are at their extremest pitch; ex- 
citements such as a simpler age scarcely dreams 
of, everywhere abound ; they cross each other in 
the nickering brilliancy of their contrasted tints ; 
for the gloomy background we have satiety, 

F 



98 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

despair, and suicide. It is then the perversions 
of society that are here pourtrayed; the sweet 
calm of domestic life has found its delineation in 
other portions of the author's works, in Eugenie 
Grande t, for instance, and Marguerite Claes. 

Here, as in another work, it is Paris " l'enfer 
de la vie moderne," our Paris— an accomplished 
metropolis of civilised Europe, at an epoch the 
most inventive for good and evil that the world 
has ever seen. It is Paris in all its glory and 
all its horror to which we are introduced. The 
question then occurs, — taking the dark and evil 
side of a civilized community for his subject, has 
the author given a faithful portrait of these trou- 
bled elements — is the picture natural ? 

We leave this to be answered by those who 
have perused the work ; a word in conclusion 
on our idea of its scope and tendency. 

The Peau de Chagrin represents, as we think, 
the downhill course of a life of pleasure ; excite- 
ment abused has done its work, the pleasures 
have well nigh lost their charm, but the raging 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 99 

appetite still continues. Behind, decked in 
gayest hues, lies the spangled field of youthful 
enj oyment and hope — beyond, the bourne to which 
we are hurried, enshrouded in murky gloom, that 
hopeless satiety, 

" To which fate nothing darker or lighter can bring, 
For which joy has no balm, and affliction no sting !" 

The action of the narrative takes in the in- 
termediate space between these extremes. The 
talisman possessed by Raphael is but emblem- 
atic of the above-mentioned catastrophe. His 
charmed life of boundless gratification, declining 
in protracted agonies, suddenly snaps when the 
power of wishing is exhausted ; and analogously, 
the voluptuary who has run through the plea- 
sures, and can frame no new wish, falls into a 
torpor, a death of volition, to which physical ex- 
tinction would be a welcome relief: to both, their 
last wish has expired. 

In another point of view, the life of Raphael 
is a bitter satire on the constitution of society ; he 
is engaged in a perpetual struggle, and an inef- 



100 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

fectual one, with his fate. The selfishness of 
the world prohibits his advance in an honorable 
career of industry ; his utmost exertions can only 
sustain him from sinking — a little respite from 
these, the indulgence of but a single caprice, a 
Countess Feedora, and.he sinks to rise only when, 
by supernatural agency, he is elevated to sustain 
a heavier fall. 



■ -Unde altior esset 

Casus et impulsse praeceps immane ruinse. 



The painful view here taken of society, under 
certain existant forms, is not morally uninstructive . 
We see here, a career of pleasure which has no 
higher aim than the gratification of the senses, 
not merely in its flowery course, but in its som- 
bre and tragic denouement. 

The voluptuary can draw no t( flattering 
unction " from such a picture — to the philoso- 
phic moralist it will afford ample food for reflection. 
We see, too, ascending from individual to social 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 101 

views, the dark side of the picture of a highly 
civilized community ; we contemplate the curses 
attendant on the developement of this mighty 
power, in a modern capital. A picture of so 
ciety in its largest sense, this is not; man is not, 
thank Heaven, utterly depraved, nor society ex- 
clusively egotistic. Yet is the picture true in its 
incompleteness, and even here we find a recog- 
nition of virtuous principle scattered throughout 
— in Raphael's early life for instance. 

So much in reference to the scope of the en- 
tire work; individual passages may be found 
which mirror almost every state of ardent feeling 
of which the human breast is capable. 

Having gone through a long analysis of this 
production of M. de Balzac, we hope its perusal 
will enable our readers to judge whether that author 
has been correctly described by the Quarterly Re- 
view, by Mr. H. Bulwer, and Mrs. Trollope. 
Faults there are, undoubtedly, and even great ones, 
both in style and sentiment; we may agree with 
adverse critics that the author is frequently guilty 



102 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

of confused metaphor, of far-fetched images, 
and forced obscurity of style, and that some of 
his views of society are, to say the least, ques- 
tionable. But, we would ask, after all these 
deductions, do we not find throughout the broad 
stamp and impress of genius? do we not, nearly 
in every page, meet with some sentence which 
unequivocally shews the acute observer of human 
nature, and the searching investigator of the 
motive springs of action. But of a higher order 
of talent than the showy and striking passages 
from which we have quoted, is the quiet by-play 
of sentiment and reflection with which the 
whole work is overlaid. How completely, for 
instance, is Raphael's character developed in the 
narrative of his passion for the Countess, and 
the inmost workings of his mind revealed. 



We now pass on to the Scenes of Parisian life. 
In some respects the title disappointed us ; the 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 103 

author has given, in some of the tales, a free 
scope indeed to his imagination; much of what 
is here described could never have taken place 
in Paris, or in any city out of fairy land, and 
the locale of some of the plots is equally re- 
moved from that lively capital ; Sarrasine, for 
instance. We expected something more home in 
the portraiture of existing manners; but the 
truth is, that M. de Balzac, taking for the 
groundwork of his fictions certain existant forms 
of society, gives us Paris as the standard to 
which all these are referrable. And in this 
point of view the work is deserving of praise, 
even on the score of unity and completeness. 
Based on the darker parts of human nature, as are 
most of the scenes here described, a capital like 
Paris may naturally be supposed to furnish the 
completest aggregate from which these detached 
portions are taken. 

Le Pere Goriot is a very clever tale, of a kind 
totally different from the Peau de Chagrin. 
The minute analysis of character viewed (with 



104 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

the exception of one or two incidents, improbable 
enough) in the routine of every-day life, is the 
ground here taken. The admirers of Miss 
Austin's elaborate pictures of a village coterie, 
will find the pension of Madame Vauquer de- 
scribed in a congenial vein ; there is the same 
individualizing talent in character painting, the 
same attainment of general effect, by the insen- 
sible accumulation of trivial incidents. 

Quotation would here be out of place ; from 
the nature of the subject, there are few striking 
passages. We are not now, as in the Peau de 
Chagrin, dealing with the picturesque antitheses 
of life ; we contemplate, it is true, the working 
of the passions, and the developement of charac- 
ter, but on a contracted stage ; it is to the for- 
mer work like a Dutch interior beside the almost 
interminable perspective and gigantic masses of 
architecture in one of Martin's pictures. 

The various tales which make up the history 
of " The thirteen," form a great portion of the 
remaining volumes. The framework of this sue- 






OF M. DE BALZAC. 105 

cessive narrative is as follows. A secret asso- 
ciatiation of thirteen individuals is formed at 
Paris ; these all agree in being men of great ta- 
lent and desperate character. By a species of 
freemasonry they are bound to each other by 
the most indissoluble and secret ties ; and all 
assist, if necessary, in any enterprise undertaken 
by one of their number. They have, too, a cer- 
tain chief named Ferragus, who figures pro- 
minently in the first story, Madame Jules. 
Taking advantage of the unhinged condition of 
society, divided as it is by the selfishness and 
egotism of its component sections, this precious 
fraternity create for themselves an immense and 
enduring power. Always on the watch to turn 
the weaknesses and vices of others to their own 
profit, restrained by no principle, united by a 
community of interest, disdaining no means, 
however small; shrinking from no enterprizes, 
however perilous ; above all, enabled by their 
limited number to work in secrecy, this small 

f 5 



106 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

knot of desperate men obtain a wonderful ascen- 
dancy over the world of Paris and of France. 

Extravagant as is this conception in many- 
points, it is original and well sustained through- 
out. There is, we suspect, some truth in the 
supposition of the prodigious power which might 
be acquired by a band of men like the thirteen, 
who warred against society for their own exclu- 
sive benefit, and used the weapons of the world, 
its selfish cunning and misdirected passions, 
against itself. This refined brigandism, the 
only species possible in a highly civilised commu- 
nity, is, we repeat, boldly conceived and carried 
through, though the Quarterly Review is very 
irate at the idea of people being asked to read 
such monstrous stuff. Yet these tales have been 
and will be read and admired by thousands, in 
spite of the dictum of the reviewer ! The plot 
of Madame Jules hinges, as we have said, on the 
desperate fortunes of Ferragus, chief of the 
Thirteen, and a more repulsive character was 
never sketched ; yet, though he has no claim 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 107 

on our sympathies (if we except his affection for 
his daughter), the mastery even of his vices, and 
the enormous power he wields, give him a cer- 
tain satanic grandeur and elevation, which ap- 
peal to the senses. 

The following extract, part of a rambling but 
clever sketch of the streets of Paris, seems to hit 
off, happily enough, some of the striking points 
in a modern capital, and is in some degree ap- 
plicable on our side of the channel. 

" Ces observations seront sans doute saisies par 
ceux pour lesquels Paris est le plus delicieux 
des monstres : la, jolie femme ; plus loin vieux 
pauvre : ici tout neuf, comme la monnaie 
d'un nouveau regne; dans ce coin, elegant 
comme une femme a la mode. Monstre com- 
plet d'ailleurs ! Ses greniers, espece de tete, 
pleine de science et de genie; ses premiers 
etages, estomacs heureux;*ses boutiques, veritables 
pieds ; de la partent tous les trotteurs, tous les 
affaires. Puis quelle vie toujours active a la 



108 REVIEW OF THE WHITINGS 

monstre ! a peine, le dernier fretillement des dei - 
nieres voitures de bal cesse-t'il au coeur, que 
deja ses bras se remuent aux barrier es, et il se 
secoue lentement. Toutes les portes baillent, 
tournent sur leurgonds, comme les membranes 
d'un grand homard, invisiblement manoeuvre es 
par trente milles hommes ou femmes, dont cha- 
cune ou chacun vit dans six pieds carres, y 
possede une cuisine, un atelier, un lit, des enfans, 
un jar din, n'y voit pas clair, et doit tout voir. 
Alors insensiblement les articulations craquent, 
le mouvement se communique, la rue parle ! 
A midi tout est vivant, les cheminees fument, 
le monstre mange : puis il rugit, puis ses mille 
pattes s' agitent. Beau spectacle ! mais Paris ! 
qui n'a pas admire tes sombres passages, tes 
echappees de lumiere, tes culs de sac profonds et 
silencieux ; qui n'a pas entendu tes murmures 
entre minuit et deux heures du matin, ne con- 
nait encore rien de ta vraie poesie, ni de tes 
bizarres et larges contrastes. — Scenes de la vie 
Parisienne, vol. ii. 18-19. 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 109 

Seldom has a sweeter character been drawn 
in fiction than Madame Jules, the heroine of this 
tale ; virtuous, amiable, and lovely, all our sym- 
pathies are enlisted in her behalf. The story is 
one of the most pathetic interest, and the plot 
has more of the suspended interest which an 
English reader expects in fiction, than belongs 
usually to M. de Balzac's works. 

We have no room for further quotation, though 
specimens of the author's best style may be found 
here. 

The history of La Marana is a gem in its way ; 
the simple narrative embodying a great principle. 
How infinitely superior is the lesson of sympa- 
thy and tolerance herefrom to be deduced, to 
those self entitled moral tales, with which the 
world has, from time to time, been surfeited. 
We must admire, too, the author's skill in the 
treatment of this difficult subject. The cour- 
tezan, fall to overflowing, not merely of mater- 
nal affection, but of what, as regards her child, 
may well be styled " the self-denying heroism of 



110 REVIEW OE THE WRITINGS 

virtue/' cannot be for a moment considered a 
strained or unnatural character. 

Her daughter has every claim on our sympa- 
thies; few will refuse a tribute of pity and ad- 
miration to Madame Diard. 

This tale is, perhaps, the most favourable 
specimen that could be given from the author's 
works ; it comprises all his excellences, his ori- 
ginal cast of thought, his acute analysis of men- 
tal workings, his forcible narrative style ; and 
free from the defects of strained analogy and 
far-fetched images, which we sometimes find. 
It contains, too, more actual matter than we ever 
remember to have read in the same number of 
pages. It would form, perhaps, a third part in 
a third volume of an average sized English 
novel; but how few of the latter have one 
tenth part of the substance which the lives of 
this mother and daughter contain. 

In the opening of the next story, the author 
displays his talent as what the French call a 
" paysagiste," or describer of scenery. The 



OF M. DE BALZAC. Ill 

convent, the island, and the blue waters that 
encircle it, stand forth in most exquisite reality. 
In the sequel of the story we are again in the 
salons of Paris, and another elaborate portrait 
of a coquette is given, in the Duchess de Lon- 
gueville. 

La fille aux yeux (Tor contains passages of 
eminent eloquence and beauty ; but the incident 
on which the action hinges, though mysteriously 
veiled, would, in this country, be considered inad- 
missible in a work of fiction. The same objec- 
tion applies, though not so strongly perhaps, to 
Sarrazine ; but it is impossible not to admire the 
brilliancy of many individual passages. 

Take the following, descriptive of the effect 
produced on the senses by a lovely prima donna, 
with all the accessaries of music and stage 
illusion. 

"Quand la Zambinella chanta, ce fat un 
delire. L'artiste eut froid * * II n'applaudit 
pas, il ne dit rien, il eprouvait un mouvement 



112 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

de folie, espece de phrenesie qui ne nous agite 
qu'a cet age ou le desir a je ne sais quoi de ter- 
rible et d'infernal. Sarrazine voulait s'elancer 
sur le theatre, et s'emparer de cette femme. Sa 
force centuplie par une depression morale im- 
possible a expliquer, puisque ces phenomenes 
se passent dans un sphere inaccessible a l'obser- 
vatione humaine, tendait a se projeter avec une 
violence douloureuse. A le voir, on eut dit d'un 
homme froid et stupide. Gloire, science, avenir, 
existence, couronnes,touts'ecroula.--Vol.iv. 160. 
La Contesse a deux maris is a totally different 
conception. It seems to have been written in 
illustration of a position advanced in this work, 
and which may be expressed as follows. — 

All of tragic or comic, all of dramatic interest, 
in short, that our epoch presents, is to be found 
in the hospital or the lawyer's chamber. The 
surgeons are the confidants of the excesses to 
which the passions lead; the lawyers of the great 
conflict of interests. La Jille aux yeux d v or 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 113 

trenches then on the hospital ground ; the tale 
we are now considering, like the single combat of 
the rival notaries hereafter to be mentioned, con- 
ducts us to the chamber of the advocate, for an 
explanation of the hidden springs of society. 

The position here advanced by M. de Balzac, 
is, we think, consonant with truth, and the legi- 
timate aim of a writer of fiction. Setting out 
with the truism, that the fictions of any epoch 
must in a great degree reflect back the objects 
of interest which characterize it, and passing 
over the feudal and barbarous ages, with their 
blood-stained pageants, and the rude conflict of 
the violent passions, and arriving at the locale of 
a modern capital, in an age like the present, we 
find all these broad elements wonderfully 
softened. The great passions remain, of course, 
identical, but a complete change has taken place 
im their developement — subtilty assumes the 
place of force, the conflict of interests succeeds 
to the trial of personal prowess. Thus the 
lawyer's chamber may be the arena for a contest 



114 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

as important, and as interesting to us moderns, 
as were to our forefathers the tented field or the 
feudal castle. In such a state of society the 
web of interests becomes, of course, excessively 
tangled ; and to the fictionist, who writes of his 
own time, its unravelment belongs. Such is M. 
de Balzac's field, and even partial success, in so 
difficult a task, is deserving of high praise. 

M. de Balzac's "Scenes de la vie de Province," 
chiefly merit attention as evidence of versatility 
of talent. The same author, who has so success- 
fully described the troubled elements of society, 
and the succession of excitements in a modern 
capital, in this series of tales, especially Eugenie 
Grandet, luxuriates in depicting the tranquil 
round of domestic employments, and all the 
still life accessaries which form the frame-work 
of the picture. 

The Quarterly was for once tolerably just, 
when it said that this tale described the mono- 
tonous life of a country chateau, and somewhat 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 115 

tedious it is, yet it contains many passages of 
great beauty. Trie heroine is thus described. — 
" Eugenie, grande et forte, n'avait done rien du 
joli ; elle etait belle de cette beaute si facile a 
meconnaitre, et qui saisit seulement l'artiste. 
Mais le peintre qui cherche ici bas le type de la 
celeste purete de Marie, qui demande a toute 
la nature feminine, cesyeux fiers etmodestes de- 
vines par Raphael, ces hgnes vierges que donne 
parfois le nature, mais que le chastete dans la 
vie et la pensee peut seule conserver ou faire 
acquerir, ce peintre amour eux d'un si rare mo- 
dele, eut trouve tout a coup dans le visage d' 
Eugenie la noblesse innee qui s'ignore : il eut 
vu sous un front calme, un monde d'amour ; et 
dans la coupe des yeux je ne sais quoi de divin. 
" Ses traits, les contours* de sa tete, que le 
plaisir n'avait jamais ni alteres ni fatigues, re- 
semblaient aux lignes d'horizon, si doucement 
tranche es dans le lointain des lacs tranquilles. 
Cette physiognomie calme, coloree, bordee de 



116 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

lueur comme une jolie fleur, fraiche e close, re- 
posait l'ame, et communiquait le charme de la 
conscience qui s'y refletait ; elle redemandait les 
regards." — Scene de la vie de Province, i. 103. 

Of the remaining tales, " La femme aban- 
donnee," is perhaps the most beautifully written. 
It is fall of sentences which linger irresistibly in 
the memory. Madame de Beausant's letter is 
almost a series of these passages. 

" La Grenadiere " is a simple and touching 
story, and its pathos is enhanced by magnificent 
descriptions of the" scenery of the Loire. 

It would be easy to quarrel with the occa- 
sional alloy of French tinsel with which the 
genuine sentiment is dashed, as when the dying 
mother puts on rouge in order to appear bloom- 
ing before her children ; but let any one that has 
perused the whole, ask himself if this be not 
amply compensated for by the many beauties it 
contains. 

There is a sentence in this tale which gives us 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 117 

some insight into the moral tone of M. de Bal- 
zac's writings. The heroine's life he thinks an 
average of female destiny. 

" Tout une vie de femme. — Une enfance 
insouciante, un mariage froid, une passion ter- 
rible, des fleurs nees dans un orage, abymees 
par le foudre, dans un goufrre d'ou rien ne sau- 
rait revenir." 

This " woman's life " is one of excitement 
and impulse — all is sacrificed to the passions — 
retributive sufferings close the scene. Now, 
though we dissent from the indiscriminate cen- 
surers of M. de Balzac's morality, and have, we 
hope, shewn just cause for so doing, it must be 
confessed that the passage in question (and it is 
about the strongest that could be quoted,) does 
not give a high estimate of female conjugal vir- 
tue. The truth seems to be, that though not 
nearly so corrupt as many would argue, and 
wish (chiefly for political reasons) to prove, the 
moral tone of contemporary French fiction is 



118 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

not high : very, very talented it is ; and in the 
writings of M. de Balzac, particularly, there is 
in many parts an ample recognition of moral 
beauty and virtuous sentiment. Still we wish 
not to blink the fact that positions are occasion- 
ally advanced which are morally indefensible. 

But giving full weight to these objections, — 
admitting too that M. de Balzac loves to depict 
some perverted section of society where a vir- 
tuous sentiment would be as much out of cha- 
racter as at a College wine party, — he must be 
a warped and biassed judge who refuses to ad- 
mit that in some of his female characters he has 
raised the ideal of virtue, in its extended sense, 
as high as any writer of our age. Is not Eu- 
genie Grandet a character sweetly feminine, 
and unaffectedly pious ? Who would refuse the 
same tribute to Augustine Guillaume and Mar- 
guerite Claes ? In all these — and other in- 
stances might be given — there is a full appreci- 
ation of the finest feelings of our nature — of 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 119 

that resignation which, when the heart is break- 
ing, can look on the future with peace, by sur- 
veying the past without reproach — and of that 
self-sacrificing heroism which soars above rules 
of morality, yet is unconsciously based upon 
them. 

La Vendetta, the Revenge, opens the " scenes 
of private life." It is a story severely simple in 
its construction, the incidents are few but strik- 
ing, and the catastrophe fully bears out the 
title. The opening may be quoted as a fair 
average specimen of De Balzac's bold, decided 
narrative. — 

" Vers le fin du mois de Septembre de l'an- 
nee 1800, un etranger, suivi d'un femme et 
d'une petite fille, arriva devant le palais des 
Tuilleries. II se tint assez long- temps aupres 
des decombres d'un maison recemment demolie, 
et resta la, debout, les bras croises, la tete pres- 
que toujours inclinee ; s'il la relevait, c'etait 
pour regarder successivement le palais consu- 



120 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

laire, puis sa femme, qui s'etait assise aupres de 
lui sur une pierre. Quoique l'inconnue parut 
ne s'occuper que de la petite fille, agee de neuf 
a dix ans, dont elle caressait les longues cheveux 
noirs, elle ne perdait jamais un seul des regards 
que lui lancait son compagnon. * * * * 
L'inconnu avait une des ces tetes fortes, abon- 
dantes en cheveux, larges et graves, qui se sont 
souvent offertes au pinceau des Carraches ; mais 
ces cheveux si noirs etait melanges d'un grande 
quantite des cheveux blancs, et ses traits nobles 
et tiers avaient un ton de durete qui les gatait 
en ce moment. II etait grand et vigoureux, 
quoiqu'il parut avoir plus de soixante ans. Ses 
vetemens delabres annon§aient qu'il venait d'un 
pays etranger." — Scenes de la Vie Privee, i. I, 2. 

This iron-moulded Corsican acts a stern part 
in the domestic drama which follows. Bartole- 
meo di Piombo will not easily be forgotten by 
the imaginative reader. The painter's atelier 
and its fair inmates is a highly graphic scene; 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 121 

but we pass on to the following description of 
the grinding pressure of poverty and want. 

The young couple, both creatures of beauty 
and genius, are in the last stage of misery. 

" Luigi l'embrassa ; c'etait un de ces baisers 
de desespoir qui se donnaient en 1793 entre 
amans a l'heure ou 1'on montait a l'echafaud. 
En ces moments sup r ernes, deux etres se voient 
co3ur a eceur. Aussi le malheureux Luigi, compre- 
nant tout a coup que sa femme etait a jeun, par- 
tagea la flevre qui la devorait. Alors il sortit sans 
satisfaire sa faim, et se mit a errer dans Paris, au 
milieu de voitures les plus brillantes, au sein de 
ce luxe insultant qui eclate partout." — i. 139. 

He obtains a supply by offering himself as a 
substitute in the conscription. 

" II commencaitafaire nuit quand il arriva chez 
lui. II entre tout doucement, craignant de don- 
ner une trop forte emotion a sa femme qu'il avait 
laissee tres faible. Les derniers rayons du soleil, 
penetrant par le haut des fenetres, venaient 
mourir sur le visage de Ginevra, qui dormait as- 

G 



122 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

sise sur une chaise. Elle tenait son enfant sur 
son sein, et le serrait fortement. Reveille toi, ma 
chere Ginevra. * * * 

"La jeune femme se mit a rire machenalement : 
mais tout a coup elle s'ecria d'une voix anreuse : 

" i Louis, mon enfant est froid! ' Elle regarda 
son fils et s'evanouit, car il etait mort." — i. 140-1 . 

Gloire et Malheur, commences the second vo- 
lume. It is one of the most touching and beau- 
tiful of the author's tales. Around all the frame- 
work of the story, the ancient "magazin" and its 
antiquated inmates, there hangs a pictorial 
quaintness which renders them genuine frag- 
ments of the olden time. Then what a delicious 
contrast to these time-worn relics is the vernal 
beauty of Augustine. The author has succeeded 
in making this the most touching of his female 
portraits ; not so elaborately drawn as Eugenie 
Grandet, and Marguerite Claes, and possessing 
intrinsically, less forcible elements of character, 
she appeals more directly to our sympathies. 
She is so sweetly feminine in her weakness, and 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 123 

all these softer elements blend so beautifully 
into her saint-like resignation at the close, when 
all her youthful hopes have one by one been 
blighted, that we could not wish her other than 
she is. 

La femme vertueuse, is a clever story; the 
author tells us it is meant to be a highly moral 
one, and to show that the violation of the social 
laws, (marriage is here meant) will bring with 
it an accompanying penalty. 

But in spite of the conclusion, we have in 
vain tried to elicit anything like this from the 
progress of the story ; and the author's general 
hostility to the marriage state is not contradicted 
by the picture of the double menage here given. 

The story, however, is full of talent ; we have 
description, sentiment, reflection, overlaying a 
plot of considerable interest. 

The following passage exemplifies that felicity 
of style which gives a charm to ideas essen- 
tially commonplace. The scene is at the gar- 
dens of Tavernay. 

g 2 



124 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

" Quandle joyeux diner fat terming Eugene 
rut le premier a proposer d'aller danser sons 
les xhataigniers an bal champ etre dn village. 
Caroline et son protectenr danser ent done ensem- 
ble. Lenrs mains se presserent avec intelli- 
gence^ et lenrs ccenrs battirent d'une meme es- 
perance. Sous le ciel bleu, aux rayons obliques 
et rouges du couchant, leurs regards arriverent a 
un eclat qui pour eux faisait palir celui du ciel. 
Etrange puissance d'une idee et d'un desir ! Bien 
ne leur semble impossible. L'ame dans ces 
moments magiques ne prevoit que du bonheur, 
et il semble que leplaisir jette ses reflets jusque 
sur l'avenir 

"Cette brillante et pure journee avaitdeja cree 
peur tous deux des celestes souvenirs, auxquels 
ils ne pouvaient rien comparer dans le passe de 
leur existance. La source serait-elle done plus 
gracieuse que le fleuve, le desir serait-il plus ra- 
vissant que la jouissance, et ce qu'on espere plus 
attrayant que tout ce qu'on possede ? — ii. 152-3. 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 125 

The third volume opens with Le Conseil. It 
consists of two anecdotes, somewhat clumsily 
strung together. The first is identical with Le 
Message, in the scenes of provincial life, but the 
second is new, and has merit of a higher order. 
The reader's interest is powerfully excited, and 
the terrible denouement artfully kept back. A 
Notary is called into the chamber of a dying lady 
to be the depositary of her will ; her appearance 
is thus described. 

" A force de regarder, en venant pres du lit, je 
finis par voir Madame de Merret, encore grace 
a la lueur de la lampe dont la clarte donnait 
sur les oreillers. Sa figure etaite jaune comme 
de la cire, et rassemblait a deux mains jointes. 
Mad. la Comtesse avait un bonnet de dentelle, 
qui laissait voir de beaux cheveux, mais blancs 
et noirs, Elle etait sur son seant et paraissait 
s'y tenir avec beaucoup de peine. Ses grands 
yeux noirs, abattus par la fievre sans doute, et 
dejapresque morts, remuaient a peine sous leurs 
arcades profondes ; son front etait humide ; ses 



126 REVIEW OF THE WHITINGS 

mains decharnees ressemblaieiit a des os recon- 
verts d'une peau bien tendue ; ses veines, ses 
muscles se voyaient parfaitement bien. Elle avait 
du etre tres belle, mais en ce moment je fas saisi 
de je ne sais quel sentiment a son aspect. Cette 
femme avait ete rongee par le mal jusqu'a n'etre 
plus q'un fantome ; les levres etaient d'un violet 
pale, et quand elle me parla, ce fut a peine si elle 
les remua." — Scenes de la vie privee, iii. — 55. 

The cause of this terrible suffering forms the 
denouement which is so artfully withheld. 

La bourse is a slight but graceful narrative, 
wherein the style embellishes the merest trifles. 

Le devoir d'une femme is powerfully written ; 
the passage of the Beresina may rank among the 
most vivid and striking of the author's descrip- 
tions ; and the denouement is singularly origi- 
nal. This tale has been lately dramatized, but 
we believe, without any acknowledgement of the 
source from which it was derived. 

The next story introduces us to Pere Gobseck 
the usurer, and the portrait has striking charac- 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 127 

teristics. His object in the successful exercise 
of his profession, (and his endeavours are unceas- 
ing,) is not so much wealth as power ; placed in 
a situation of which the weaknesses and vices of 
society combine to elevate the power, he rules 
despotically over all ranks, and sees each in turn, 
under the pressure of necessity, humble itself 
before him. Such a character leads naturally to 
those analyses of society on its darker side, in 
which M. de Balzac delights to conduct his rea- 
der. And here he does not neglect the oppor- 
tunity. The author informs us in his preface, 
that there is a connexion between the stories in 
Vol. 4th. This is to our mind very obscurely 
traced in parts ; but considered as detached 
scenes, they possess a fair portion of talent. The 
most graphic scene, one o£ the most highly 
wrought in the whole series, is the parting of 
the father and daughter, after their romantic 
meeting on the pirate's vessel ; it is one of those 
conceptions (which it is the fashion for depre- 
ciating critics to call melodramatic,) which seize 



128 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

at once on the imagination, with irresistible 
power. But we have already quoted several of 
what may be called M. de B.'s showy passages, 
and will now rather give the following observa- 
tions on character, which a high tone of philo- 
phic analysis redeems from common-place. 

" II se rencontre beaucoup d'hommes dont la 
nullite profonde est un secret pour le plupart des 
gens qui les connaissent. Un haut rang, une 
illustre naissance, d'importants fonctions, un 
certain verms, une grande reserve dans la con- 
duite, sont pour eux^ comme des gardes qui em- 
pechent les critiques de penetrer jusqu'a leur 
intime existence, lis resemblent aux rois dont 
la veritable taille, le caractere et la mceurs ne 
pouvent jamais etre nibien connus, ni justement 
apprecies, parcequ'ils sont vus de trop loin ou de 
trop pres. Avec une heureuse addresse, ils tirent 
chacun par le fil de ses passions ou de ses interets, 
et se jouent ainsi des homines qui leur sont re- 
ellement superieurs. Alors ils obtiennent le 
triomphe naturel d'une pensee mesquine mais 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 129 

fixe sur la mobilite des grandes pensees. * i 
jSTeanmoins quelque habilite que deploient ces 
usurpateurs en defendant leurs cotes faibles, il 
leur est bien difficile de tromper leurs femmes, 
leurs enfans, ou l'ami de la niaison. Mais ces 
personnes leur gar dent presque tonjours le se- 
cret sur une chose qui touche en quelque sorte a 
l'lionneur commun, et souvent meme elles les 
aident a en imposer au monde." — Vol. iv. 77-78. 
The fifth volume contains the history of Bal- 
thazar Claes, and his searches after the philoso- 
pher's stone. Besides this, we have detailed por- 
traits of the family, two sweet women, mother 
and daughter, on whom the author has lavished 
all his treasures of ideal female excellence. 
Balthazar himself is one of those massive por- 
traits, full of depth and shadow, such as Rem- 
brandt would have painted. He is great 
throughout; his very weakness has gigantic 
elements, and the gradual prostration of his 
lofty intellect, through its progressive stages of 
pre-occupation, monomania, and imbecility, is a 

g 5 



130 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

painfully elaborate picture. This is one of those 
slow marching narratives where the author de- 
pends for his effect more on the accurate accu- 
mulation of details, than on a succession of 
striking incidents. M. de Balzac is a great mas- 
ter in this kind of fiction. The present, several 
other among the Scenes of Private Life, perhaps 
Eugenie Grandet, and certainly Le Pere Goriot, 
may be cited as successful instances. In this he 
resembles Godwin more than any other English 
fictionist. And indeed so slow a process would 
be laughed at by the slap-dash school of novelists, 
who contribute nine-tenths to that class of litera- 
ture at present. Throughout this story we have 
elaborate pictures of still life, as in Eugenie 
Grandet, but the interest is so powerfully con- 
centrated in Balthazar, his wife and daughter, 
that we cannot for a moment complain of that 
monotony with which the latter fiction is dashed. 
Peas-blossom (Le fleur des pois) not after the 
manner of Shakspeare, concludes the series as it 
stands at present ; but all the author's works are 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 131 

subject to indefinite augmentation. The story 
itself is an elaborate satire on marriage ; our 
author's opinions on the subject it is not difficult 
to collect. It is, he thinks, under the present con- 
stitution of society, hostile to individual happi- 
ness. There are two clever things in Lafieur des 
pois. One, the single combat between the rival 
notaries Matthias and Solonnet, is referrable to 
the position already noticed, viz., that surgery 
and law monopolize the interesting elements of 
fiction. The other instance of talent is De Mar- 
say's letter, with which the volume concludes. It 
is fall of shrewd, roue, worldly knowledge, like 
the most caustic parts of Don Juan. 

We will conclude, by stating, as briefly as 
the nature of the subject admits, our estimate of 
the position which M. de» Balzac's writings 
occupy. 

Among the various forms in which the con- 
templation of the actual world can be reproduced 
in an author's works, there are three, which 
include the vast majority of these possible 
varieties. 



132 REVIEW OE THE WRITINGS 

The first, the province of practical minds and 
strong observant faculties, gives us the actual 
portraiture of things as they are. 

Here the inference is left to be drawn by the 
reader, for there is no real incompleteness in the 
philosophy of human character. The simplest 
description of a village coterie, or family circle, 
contains the same fundamental elements as the 
minutest anatomization of an individual mind. 
In each case we have human nature as developed 
in action, but the point of aspect is changed. In 
the one case, the stress is laid on the outward signs, 
considered, of course, merely as types of the in- 
ward mental workings ; in the other, these being 
assumed, as premises, the author passes at once 
to his conclusion, and in analyzing the nicer 
shades of character, aud the less palpable mental 
workings, he marks out for himself a distant 
course, yet one necessarily connected with the 
other, as parts of the same great whole. 

The painter of surface manners, then, and the 
anatomist of character, have then distinct func- 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 133 

tions ; they are independent of and yet reci- 
procate with each other. 

Is it not, then, a mistake to say, as we often 
hear, that the one mode of treatment is superficial, 
compared with the other ? Is not there, more cor- 
rectly speaking, a large draught here left to be 
filled up by the mingled imagination and expe- 
rience of the reader? 

As a third class, we have those who deal 
almost exclusively with the ideal. This is es- 
sentially poetical in its form, and in some kinds 
even of this must be sparingly introduced. The 
forms here are not in contradiction to human 
nature, certainly, for then they would outrage 
likewise, those rules of art on which all com- 
positions must be based; neither are they in 
accordance with it, but may* be styled gigantic 
parallels, whereby (as from antediluvian remains 
we reconstruct a kindred but a mightier world of 
animal life) the same forms are reproduced, but 
on a colossal scale. 

Here may find a place all an author's dreams 



134 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

of the ideal, as well as his metaphysical induc- 
tions ; only there must be a starting point of 
human interest. Thus, in that exquisite poem, 
Shelley's Alastor, we have human passion 
(setherialized and subtilized it is true) for the key- 
stone of the arch, which extends so far into the 
regions of poetic fancy and metaphysical induc- 
tion ; and this is probably as strong a case of the 
ideal as could be quoted. 

We have, then, in fictitious literature, these 
three great divisions. 

1st. Those authors who depict manners and 
persons, merely with reference to their obvious 
peculiarities. These, however, furnish the base 
on which all analyses of character, and all ex- 
cursions into the sphere of the ideal (which do 
not lose themselves in a vague generality) must 
rest. Of this class, Paul de Koch, and Capt. Mar- 
ryatt are admirable living specimens. 

2nd. As their converse, we have those, in 
whose works this substratum of character, as 
evidenced by external forms, being assumed, a 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 135 

portion of it is selected to support the lofty and 
glittering superstructure of ideal theory. 

Yet; as we have shown, there is a necessa r y 
connection between the two. 

3rd. Midway between these opposites, lies 
the class who give (generally speaking) anato- 
mizations of individual character. These are 
distinct from, yet connected with each of the 
former classes. 

With the painters of surface manners, by their 
cognizance of human pursuits, and the palpable 
characteristics of society, in reference to the ex- 
position of character. 

With the idealists (as the class we have men- 
tioned secondly, may be termed in distinction 
to their practical opposites) by their departure 
from the beaten track to analyse those eccentric 
cities which may seem to contradict the general 
laws of nature. They are thus, in what may be 
called, a transition state between the two ; and 
to this class, we humbly opine, belongs M. de 
Balzac. Not but that as a practical observer of 



136 REVIEW OF THE WHITINGS 

the outward forms of society, (the ripples on the 
surface of the current) he displays great talent ; 
and when he likes, can give an inventory of the 
furniture of some rambling chateau en Province, 
or an apartment aux quatrieme in some obscure 
corner of Paris, with all the minute fidelity of 
a pictorial appraiser, as we may call some of the 
artists of the Flemish school. But these are 
(with few exceptions) accessary touches ; and it 
is one of the author's best peculiarities that he 
prepares us gradually for the developement of 
his plots ; a plan diametrically opposite, as we 
have mentioned, to the un-artist like slur and 
bustle which with even talented writers among 
ourselves, conduct then fictions. But it is easy 
to see the track in which M. de Balzac delights 
to lead his reader. 

It is in such characters as De Marsay the 
egotist, half dandy, half philosopher, a brigand 
of modern society, who wages his predatory war 
with weapons put into his hands by the weaknes- 
ses and vices of a modern capital, or as Gobseck, 
the usurer, who in a somewhat different line, 



OF M. DE BALZAC. 137 

acts on the same principles, that he gives frill 
scope to his powers. 

In the portraiture of these anomalous cha- 
racters, in their rank luxuriance of energy, 
resembling the heroes of Lord Byron's earlier 
poems, but chained down to the gregarious life 
of a modern capital, half fanciful, half sternly 
practical, based in the muddy realism of a cor- 
rupted society, yet soaring into the ideal, if not 
of the heroic, at least of the poetically exagge- 
rated character, M. de Balzac stands by him- 
self in modern literature ; here he displays all 
his power and versatility, whether enlarging 
his circle of analysis from individuals to masses, 
yet preserving the fine-drawn line of connection; 
whether dazzling with brilliant antithesis, or 
charming with unaffected pathos. 

In the wide range of his works he has suc- 
ceeded in combining objects which do not seem 
easily reconcileable ; viz., the minute and faith- 
ful delineation of individual traits of character, 
and that gregarious view of a modern commu- 



138 REVIEW OF THE WRITINGS 

nity which gives the reversed side of the medal, 
the curses and corruptions which follow in the 
train of that mighty engine, civilization. The 
moral results of dwelling so prominently on the 
dark side of the social picture may be question- 
able ; we make no comments, giving it merely 
as characteristic of a remarkable writer., of a 
clever nation, at a very active epoch of its literary 
history. 

To those who read for instruction rather than 
amusement, the sketches of French provincial 
life will probably be the most acceptable portion 
of M. de Balzac's works. The stagnation of 
their country towns, forming a complete anti- 
thesis with the bustling capital, will also induce, 
even in the least national Englishman, an ad- 
vantageous comparison for his own country, 
where many provincial societies possess, as is well 
known, all the agremens of the capital on a 
smaller scale. In France, excepting a few wa- 
tering places in the summer season, the direct 
contrary seems to be the case. 



OBSERVATIONS 

ON THE 6th AND 7th VOLS. OF THIERS' 

REVOLUTION, AND THE CHARACTER OF 

ROBESPIERRE. 

Paris edition, 10 vols. 8vo. 1834. 

The si xth volume is perhaps the most inter- 
esting of the entire work ; it contains the history 
of the most bloody epoch of the revolution, 
and the most exciting conflicts of personal 
ambition, the death of Danton, the joint dicta- 
torship of the trumvirs, and the fall of Robe- 
spierre. The committee of public safety was 
probably the most bloody tyranny that has ever 
been recorded in history. Individual despots 



140 OBSERVATIONS ON 

may, it is true, have diffused wider desolation 
among their slavish dependants ; but considering 
the relative value of human life at an epoch of 
modern civilization, as well as the individual 
talent and character that were sacrificed without 
a moment's hesitation to the jealousies or sup- 
posed interests of party, and the unflinching 
adherence to the system of extermination it had 
laid down, all these leave the Tribunal Revolu- 
tionnaire without a parallel. 

The character of Robespierre is a little diffi- 
cult to appreciate ; with many of the requisite 
qualities for a successful chief of party, he 
wanted that promptitude and firmness in a crisis, 
for which nothing can compensate— witness his 
irresolution after his impeachment had been 
pronounced by the convention. His character 
is however remarkable as an instance of second- 
rate talent sedulously worked out and perfec- 
tioned by time and attention. His talent was 
hut second rate, without the mastering oratory of 
Mirabeau, the intense energy of Danton, or the 



THIERS REVOLUTION. 141 

vivid eloquence, both as a speaker and writer, of 
Camille Desmoulins ; inferior also to the leaders 
of the Girondist party, in the leading attributes 
of the Orator and the Statesman, he yet rose 
superior to them all in the duration and extent 
of the influence he obtained. 

"We see in Robespierre an extraordinary 
instance of vague ideas of action, gradually 
generalized, and cemented into a system. From 
the period of the constituent assembly to the 
early days of the National Convention, his ruling 
motive seems to have been a paltry jealousy of 
the most talented public men; this dominant 
feeling worked itself subsequently into a system 
of action as inflexibly adhered to, as any that is 
recorded in the page of history ; and aided 
but by second rate talent, obtained that supre- 
macy which follows a fixed plan determinately 
pursued. There is a sentence in one of De 
Balzac's novels which resumes my idea of Robe- 
spierre. ' e lis obtiennent le triomphe naturel d'une 



142 OBSERVATIONS ON 

pensee mesquine maisfixe sur la mobilite des 
grandes pensees." 

Never was there a more striking historical 
example of the intrinsic weight which a decided 
purpose gives. His plan of action once formed 
was never abandoned or even relaxed. He was in 
turn therefore the foe of every man whose talents 
he feared, when this could be done with safety. 
Veiling the most consummately selfish ambition, 
(for in spite of what Thiers says, I cannot doubt 
his ambition,* though personal vanity, with its 
accompanying littleness may have entered largely 
into its composition) under the cloak of noble 
and generous sentiments, he made the names 
of patriotism and religion serve his projects. 

And never was this common place hypocrisy 
performed with a better grace, or a more plau- 
sible appearance of belief in the virtues which 
his whole career outraged. Witness his patriotic 
orations passim, his defence of Danton to the 

* " Robespierre avail de la vanite, mais il n'etait pas assez 
grand pour etre ambitieux." — Thiers, vi. 343. 



THIERS' REVOLUTION. 143 

Jacobins, and his sentimental denunciation of 
Atheism, in his famous speech on the belief in 
a supreme being. Few have possessed more 
eminently than Robespierre, the quality we 
term conduct in a public man, i. e. the dex- 
terous availment of circumstances, to augment 
his reputation and influence. Till the last 
bloody epoch of his dictatorship, the world was 
unwilling to believe him ought but a model 
of republican virtue. To estimate the force of 
this conduct, we must bear in mind the dead 
weight which his more than suspected cowardice 
in crises of danger, must have attached to a man, 
at an epoch so fertile in examples of every 
kind of courage, from passive stoicism to the 
most romantic daring. Yet all this he over- 
bore, and ruled for a time the destinies of revo- 
lutionized France ; an empire demanding pow- 
ers how different from a snug monarchy under 
the ancien regime. 

The same prudence, to use a very weak 
word, characterized his oratory — never com- 



144 OBSERVATIONS ON 

mitting himself by vague declamation, always 

i 
speaking to the point, and reserving himself 

dexterously for great occasions ; partly from this 
management, partly from gradual improvement 
by practice, he rose to high estimation in this 
epoch of varied eloquence. Among the mass 
of speeches which history has preserved, in the 
debates at the Convention and the Jacobins, 
few, if any, are superior for precision, clearness 
and relevance, to those of Robespierre. Nor 
was this all ; his activity as a practical politician 
was unwearied ; and this, aided by concurrent 
circumstances, brought him through the first and 
most bloody epoch of the revolution, till having 
struggled for, and obtained supremacy, he fell 
a victim to the exterminating system he had 
assisted in establishing. And his fall was pro- 
bably, as Thiers thinks, sooner or later an inevi- 
table consequence on the march of events, and 
the progress of public opinion. 

The catatrosphe of Robespierre was the cul- 
minating point of the bloodiest epoch of the 



THIERS' REVOLUTION. 145 

example of the career which unprincipled 
ambition, grafted on secondary talent, but 
inflexible and systematic action, can work out 
for itself, and of the retribution which society 
demands at the close. Nature has not given 
to any man, in a modern society at least, to set all 
his fellow citizens of note to destroy each other, 
like the soldiers of Cadmus, without adding his 
own body to complete the heap of slain. The 
historian has related this wonderful series of 
events in a most picturesque and striking man- 
ner. The character of Robespierre, with which 
the sixth volume concludes, is particularly 
terse and effective. The last twenty lines from 
" Robespierre ne pouvait," to ' 'reconnue," might 
read as a passage from Tacitus. The seventh vo- 
lume, taking up the history from the catastrophe 
of Robespierre, commences what the author terms 
the retrograde march of the revolution . A violent 
reaction against the regime of terror, changes 
completely the position of parties. The relics 
of the Girondist party and the Thermidorians 

H 



146 OBSERVATIONS ON 

(dating their existence and name from the day 
on which Kobespierre fell) are now dominant 
in the convention. The mountain and extreme 
republican party are by this reaction, and the 
indiscreet insurrections of their partizans, re- 
duced almost to a nullity. This portion of 
history presents much that is gratifying ; we 
see the eager return of the Parisians to the 
enjoyments and elegancies of civilized life. The 
salons are again brilliant — the theatres again 
crowded — the bloodiest and most real of all 
tragedies, the year 1794, gives place to the 
mimic terrors of the stage. The mighty Jaco- 
bins, that avant-garde of the revolution's march, 
that bug-bear of royalists and moderates, is no 
more. Yet, all is not yet over ; the tide has 
indeed turned, yet again and again a wave 
rolls back on that blood-stained shore ! We have 
yet a 12 Germinal, and a 1 Prairial, last 
efforts of that wonderful aptitude for insurrection 
displayed by the people of Paris. Above all, 
in the executions and arrests following the 1 



THIERS' REVOLUTION. 147 

PrairiaL, the Girondists show that they fully 
shared in the sanguinary passions of the epoch. 

Some of the consequences of this change of 
policy in the admission of emigrant royalists, 
seem to have been disastrous enough ; yet vic- 
tory still waited on the arms of France, and the 
remaining impulse of the revolutionary com- 
mittee long survived the extinction of its 
authors. 

Leamington, December, 1837. 



H 2 



A FEW WORDS ON PAUL DE KOCH. 

Like most prolific writers, Paul de Koch has 
very unequal merit. Nearly all his works, how- 
ever, are light easy reading. But, rising above 
this average of humourous delineation, we meet 
with two most complete conceptions, both, too, 
of a painful character, which may seem strange 
in a writer who owes his reputation to his ludi- 
dicrous combinations of incidents, and breadth 
of humour. 

I here speak of " Georgette," and " Le 
Cocu." The first gives the decline and fall of a 
woman of pleasure, with a painful fidelity that 



A FEW WORDS ON PAUL DE KOCH. 149 

makes us forget the humourous scenes that are 
intermingled. We cease to laugh over the su- 
perannuated gallantry of the old beau Lecaile, 
to sympathise with the hard rubs that poor 
Georgette receives, in her descent down the an- 
gular projections of social life at Paris : it is as 
good as Hogarth's Harlot's Progress, in its 
way, and worked up to a pitch accordant with 
the superior splendour and variety of modern 
life. 

And how melancholy is the impression left 
by the entire work ; not the grateful sadness 
which survives after a pathetic passage, but that 
uneasy leaden feeling, of mingled pity and dis- 
gust, which the revelation of the worst and 
weakest parts of our nature cannot fail to pro- 
duce on a rightly constituted mind. 

"Le Cocu," equally sustained and complete 
anatomizes the workings of jealousy, and all the 
minor miseries that accompany domestic dissen- 
tions. It brings the spirit of Fleetwood down 
to the details of modern life, with which the 



150 A FEW WORDS ON PAUL DE KOCH. 

author is far more conversant than Godwin, 
whose social experience was probably small, 
which gives his characters a somewhat stiff and 
buckram air. Here, however, the husband's jea- 
lousy is grounded upon no vague or baseless 
suspicions. All the characters are extremely 
natural, and, like Georgette, this novel produced 
on me that individuality of painful sensation, 
which is, perhaps, the highest triumph of ficti- 
tious composition. 

No stilted declamation of tragedy comes home 
to the feelings like these too faithful portraits of 
domestic misery. And so strangely fascinating 
is the heroine, that in spite of her heartless con- 
duct, we seem to share in her husband's attach- 
ment. But then, Eugenie is so natural — more 
so, alas for human nature ! than the sublimely 
virtuous Mary Fleetwood. 

Bath, March, 1838. 



GAULE ET FRANCE. 151 



DUMAS, " GAULE ET FRANCE. 



Dumas, "Gaule et France," has been my 
travelling book. It is somewhat slapdashy and 
superficial, but still it gives a readable and con- 
cise account of the first rise of the French 
nation from the ruins of the Roman empire. 
We see more clearly, after reading it, what kind 
of men were Pepin and Charlemagne, and Philip 
Augustus ; and now that the buckram of 
the old school of historical writing is for ever 
thrown aside, and each year brings some ad- 
dition to the modern descriptive style, this small 
volume will rank among those works whose 
merit consists in rendering intelligible to our 
modern feelings, the grim and shadowy forms of 
the warrior monarchs of the middle ages. 



v o 



Munich, Sept. 30, 1838. 



CHARACTER OF LOUIS XI. 



Louis XL, stands out in poetic colouring on 
the canvas of French history ; it is in vain to 
say that as a remorseless and cold-blooded tyrant 
he has no claim on our sympathies. As long as 
the exhibition of concentrated power has a 
charm, those epochs in history, where that 
power was directed by a superior intelligence, 
will rank among the most fascinating to the 
mind. What historical student will forget the 
first six books of the annals of Tacitus, which 
pourtray so elaborately the dark and crafty po- 
licy of Tiberius. But Louis XL was in intel- 



CHARACTER OF LOUIS XI. 153 

lect a monarch far superior to his age, and did 
more to advance the greatness of his kingdom 
than any other of the dynasty. This was effected, 
mainly, by his application of the principle of 
centralization, in the appreciation of which, he 
was centuries ahead of his contemporaries. His 
very cruelties had a kind of capricious justice 
about them, and he was himself a sort of rude 
providence in those lawless times. 

As a man of mind, we shall look in vain for 
his equal in the whole dynasty of the Bourbons. 
He was in no respect fettered by the trappings 
of royalty ; his personal activity, and practical 
knowledge of character, seem to have rivalled 
these qualities in Napoleon, and were the more 
extraordinary in one born to the succession of 
an established throne. 

Such a character was fine ground for the ro- 
mance writer, and has not in our day been ne- 
glected. His elaborate portrait, in Quentin Dur- 
ward, has always been reckoned among Sir. W. 
Scott's most powerful creations. And scarcely 

h5 



154 CHARACTER OF LOUIS XI. 

less admirable is the brief but characteristic 
delineation in Victor Hugo's i( Notre Dame;" 
and De Balzac, in his short tale,* has happily 
hit off some of the leading features of the 
character. 

Geneva, Sept. 25th, 1837. 



* ontes Philosophiques. 



MEMOIRS OF THE DUG DE RICHELIEU, 

The six volumes of which this work consists, 
have beguiled my breakfast hours during the 
last fortnight. — 

With fairish tea, excellent bread, a cut of 
Bayonne ham, not forgetting a little genuine 
English mustard, and a good French memoir, 
what more could be wished for ? 

All the recital of the Duke's intrigues, which 
almost equal Leporello's catalogue, are dull 
enough, to say nothing of the moral disgust they 
inspire ; but certain historical episodes possess, 



156 MEMOIRS OF THE 

from the actors they describe, a permanent 
interest. 

Such is the sketch of Law, and the rise, pro- 
gress, and decline of the Mississippi bubble. 

And the same remark applies, though with 
less force, to the whole narrative of the Regent 
and his Court. 

I always thought this part of French history 
extremely quaint and picturesque. A court 
where all constituted ideas, whether in religion, 
morals, or etiquette, were turned up-side down ; 
— where the gravest questions were settled .by 
a bon mot, or a dirty inuendo : where Dubois 
rose to the highest honours by the mere force of 
his despicable qualities, and was buffeted and 
buffooned, step by step, from the rank of Abbe 
to that of Cardinal ; — a court where no com- 
promise was attempted with appearances, where 
no veil interposed between the orgies of royalty 
and the public eye ; — where public affairs were 
involved in a confusion, which only the capri- 
cious despotism of the most extravagant of the 



DUC DE RICHELIEU. 157 

Caesars can parallel. Such was the regency of the 
Duke of Orleans. Yet so hearty was the bonho- 
mie, and good nature of this prince, (whose fine 
talents were swamped by bad education and ex- 
ample) that it is impossible to avoid feeling inter- 
ested in his fortunes. The narrative of his death 
is perhaps the best written passage in these vo- 
lumes. It has a naive simplicity about it, which 
almost rises into historical dignity. It recalled 
to my mind the death of Petronius Arbiter in 
the annals of Tacitus. 

The sketch, also, of the last days of Louis 1 5th, 
possesses much interest. The endless web of 
intrigues that surrounded the court, with the 
satiety and occasional remorse of the debauched 
Monarch, are quietly but forcibly depicted. 

The classical reader will recur to that terrible 
passage in the Roman historian, — " Ut si reclu- 
dantur tyrannorum mentes, ibi posse aspici lania- 
tus et ictus, quando ut corpora verberibus, ita 
saevitia, libidine et malis consultis, animus 
dilaceretur." 



158 MEMOIRS OF RICHELIEU. 

The infinite worthlessness of the French 
noblesse, the deep-seated and almost universal 
profligacy in public and private life, formed 
the characteristics of that generation, for whom 
such a terrible retribution was preparing. The 
Duke de Richelieu, notwithstanding his dissi- 
pations, lived on to a patriarchal age ; his 
memoirs are linked to the present generation 
by the introduction of the Comte d'Artois, 
afterwards Charles 10th. 

Paris, January, 1839. 



PART II 



SHORT ESSAYS. 



REFLECTIONS ON CHIMNEY POTS. 

► 

To a few minds of first-rate power, where the 
" imagination all compact " is aided by an un- 
common fidelity of memory, it is given to real- 
ize genuine reflection from the varied scenes 
which the most excursive life can present. 



160 SHORT ESSAYS. 

But in the great majority of those who do 
actually think, the reflective power they possess 
is frittered away, and nullified by want of con- 
centration on definite objects. A crowd of half 
ideas arise, on a multiplicity of subjects, without 
any one being completely realized) like the 
pretty faces one passes amidst the whirl, and 
bustle, and dust, of the return from Epsom, on 
the Derby day, too rapidly to allow of any dis- 
tinct image remaining. 

To be more definite, let the associations which 
external objects present to a person of average 
sensibility of impression, during a single day, 
be reckoned over, surely out of so great a num- 
ber, it might be supposed that some one would 
fructify into thought, if only for the benefit of 
the individual himself. But we pass them too 
rapidly even for this, and each, in turn, dis- 
lodges its predecessor ; whereas if we paused at 
any one, even the most unpromising, something 
better might result. 

Take, for instance, the prospect from my 



SHORT ESSAYS. 161 

windows, at the present moment — a narrow 
London street, attic and garret windows, and 
tiled roofs opposite, and angular masses of chim- 
ney pots rising against the sky. 

I will omit all but a passing allusion to what 
may be discovered in an opposite window; what 
beauties, hitherto blushing unseen, may be thus 
revealed — the commencement of what adventures 
laid. But to come at once to the chimney 
pots. Aye, the chimney pots ! as begrimed as 
you like with metropolitan soot and filth. "What 
dramas of domestic life could not these reveal. 

Philosophers and moralists tell us that "all 
things human end in smoke." As is the case 
in most dogmatical sayings, here is a good deal 
of truth, spoilt by a too epigrammatic straining 
after universality. Many, in truth, of the good 
things of life, capon feasts, family jollifications, 
the groaning Christmas board, have smoke as 
their natural heritage. The chimney pots are, 
then, the never -failing confidants of domestic 
prosperity or distress. If a smoky chimney be 



162 SHORT ESSAYS. 

an evil deservedly classed with that stinger, a 
scolding wife, undoubtedly its converse, one 
through which the smoke but tardily and thinly 
ascends, betokens a hearth where no genial plenty 
reigns, and tells the falling fortunes of the 
family. Slender and more slender grows the 
curling column, as one step in ruin succeeds to 
another, as suits accumulate, and the debtors' 
prison appears no longer in the dim perspective 
of distance, but in close and frightful proximity. 
At length the genial current ceases — the blow 
has fallen, the household gods are broken, the 
fire at their altar is extinct. Yet these con- 
ductors of the kitchen's produce fail not in their 
office. Another family succeeds, another knot of 
human interests, another bundle of mingled pas- 
sions, weaknesses, and virtues ; the smoke again 
rises, and life again, with its cheering adjuncts 
of kitchen and larder, is busy within. 

Death or ruin may remove the once happy 
inmates of that brick and tiled tenement, but 



SHORT ESSAYS. 163 

neither to the Fleet nor to the grave do the 
chimney pots follow their former lords. 

Neque harum quas colis arborum, 

# * * * 

Ulla brevem dominum sequetur. 

Who will assert that this is more true of trees 
than of chimney pots. 

If, then, the prospect of these pinnacles of 
domestic architecture, leads to the contem- 
plation of human and social interests, think 
twice, traveller, through life, before you pro- 
nounce any prospect to be barren and unfruitful; 
think, too, moralist, who art hurrying in search 
of fresh topics, think, have you made the most of 

your neighbour's chimney pots ? 

> 

Duke Street, St. James's, June I, 1837. 



164 SHORT ESSAYS. 



ON THE OPENING OF THE GRAND JUNCTION 
RAILWAY BETWEEN BIRMINGHAM AND MAN- 
CHESTER JULY 20th, 1837. 

Among those changes in the machinery of 
social life, which are so vital in the alterations 
they produce, that they may not unfitly be 
termed revolutions, the opening of this line of 
railway may fairly claim a prominent place. It 
is true that we have, for some years, had a rail- 
road in operation, but the present may be con- 
sidered as the first-fruits of that gigantic series 
of speculations, which, when completed, are to 
change entirely our system of internal com- 
munication. 

From the earliest times in which infant civi- 
lization called for a communication between the 
capital and the provinces, down to the present 
epoch of multiplied interests and gigantic com- 
mercial enterprise, horses have been the sole 



SHORT ESSAYS. 165 

medium by which, on land at least, these wants 
could be supplied. 

Was speed called for — and how often has for- 
tune, nay even life itself, depended on the speed 
of communication? — the powers of the horse were 
the only and never -failing resource. 

By successive improvements in road making, 
in the construction of carriages, economy of time, 
and management of animal power, our internal 
communication has reached a pitch of excellence, 
which, whether in post or coach travelling, or 
the conveyance of letters, has left all competition 
far behind.* 

* The French have of late years made great and praise- 
worthy efforts to overtake us in our arrangements for public 
travelling. Considering the materials they have had to work 
upon, they have done wonders. On the 'English side of Paris, 
i.e., on the Calais, Dieppe, and Havre roads, the heavy diligence, 
with its team of punchy horses, travels at the rate of seven and 
a half to eight miles per hour. On the Bordeaux road, I be- 
lieve, the rate is still faster. The Malles de Post, on all the 
roads, do three and a half leagues, full nine English miles, per 
hour. And the Malles Estafette are the fastest letter carriages 
in the world, performing four to five leagues per hour. 



166 SHORT ESSAYS. 

The highest amount of speed, then, attainable, 
has, up to a very recent date, been derived from 
the horse alone. This, too, in an age when 
public utility, individual caprice, the calls of 
business, and the would-be necessities ] of plea- 
sure, have all concurred to put it frequently to 
the test. 

I will not even recur to well-known feats of 
equestrian speed; that in riding express, nearly, 
if not quite, twenty miles an hour is obtainable, 
is a well known fact. 

Look, too, at the ease with which a well- 
horsed coach goes daily over part of its ground 
at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, or, on occa- 
sion, covers its mile at from three to three and a 
half minutes. And though the powers of these 
astonishing animals have'too often been needlessly 

The author lately (Jan. 1839) saw the new Malles de Post, 
built to be tried on a few of the principal roads. They are 
much on the plan of a britzka, to hold two persons, closing with 
a German window. They appeared to be be most gentlemanly 
and comfortable carriages. The conducteur has a separate 
seat behind. 



SHORT ESSAYS. 167 

and cruelly abused, it is gratifying to reflect that 
the increased speed of travelling has been ac- 
companied, generally speaking, by a correspond- 
ing improvement in the comforts of the horse. 

No one can doubt that the coach and post 
horse of the present day, who is called upon to 
perform his ten and twelve miles an hour, has a 
preferable lot to that of his predecessor fifty years 
ago, who accomplished five or six. So much for 
lighter draught, consequent on the improvements 
in carriage building, and road-making, improved 
condition, and shorter work. Considering, then, 
the variety of commercial interests, and cases of 
individual and domestic happiness which have 
depended on the speed and regularity of the 
letter post alone, (to take one branch of the vast 
machine of internal communication) it is not 
too much to say that up to the establishment of 
railroads, had horses suddenly become extinct, 
the whole fabric of society, all that characterizes 
the life of a modern civilized community, would 
have been rent in sunder. 



168 SHORT ESSAYS. 

This is perhaps an additional argument in 
favor of railroads, and their iron immutability 
of constitution ; I have only desired to support 
my opening proposition, i.e., that the completion 
of the proposed lines will constitute the great- 
est social change that modern times has witnessed. 
I am not among those who whine over inevitable 
changes, or who see but the loss, without con- 
sulting the gain : the world is ever changeful : 
we stand on its shifting surface ; already have 
some institutions, that a year or two ago were 
pregnant with vital energy, become the past^ 
and are now to be seen in the dim perspective of 
history. 

We are rapidly leaving others behind, in our 
progress onwards ; such is our coach travelling. 

But it may be allowed to one who has lived 
in its zenith, and now witnesses its decline and 
fall, (for it bows down in the meridian of its 
glory before the power of steam,) but its sudden, 
though, happily, but partial extinction, to cast a 
a longing, lingering look behind, on the field of 



SHORT ESSAYS. 169 

of its triumphs ; intertwined, too, as these are, 
with so many individual recollections of enjoy- 
ment. The author of these pages is free to confess 
that some of the happiest days of probably the 
happiest period of his life, were spent in coach 
travelling. They were, it is true, when early 
youth lent its charm to all around. 
As the song says, — 

Oh ! those were days when life had wings, 
And flew, oh, flew ! so wild a height, 

That, like the lark that sunward springs, 
'Twas giddy from too much light. 

And so powerful is association, that, possibly, 
some sexagenarian may look back with regret 
on the slow stages of his youth. 

Still, I must own, that apart from business, to 
coach travelling I have owed many days of plea- 
sure, and I hope I have not been unmindful of 
this ; I have myself travelled for many years on 
our best coaches, not till 1836 yielding to the 
attractions of foreign travel ; I have, too, set my 

i 



170 SHORT ESSAYS. 

friends a coaching as much as possible. And 
the author, speaking in the third person, may 
here remark, that in the only work he gave to 
the world, he endeavoured zealously, at least, to 
communicate to others some of the vivid im- 
pressions he had himself experienced. 

But fate's decree must be obeyed, and the 
illustrious names of many of our coaches will be 
remembered but as a tale of things gone by. 

Paris, July 25, 1837. 



LONDON AND PARIS. 



Nearly every traveller, or tourist, or to de- 
scend still further, nearly every person who 
excurses across the channel, repeats the truism 
that London and Paris, the two great Euro- 
pean capitals, are essentially different in charac- 
ter. It may not, however, be amiss to consider 



SHORT ESSAYS, 171 

a few of the most striking points of difference 
between these wonderful cities. 

And first, to take merely a brick and mortar 
view of Paris. This, say its writers, is empha- 
tically the city of contrasts ; — so is London, 
however, in its localities, and so must every large 
city be, to a certain extent, since in the economy 
of streets, juxta-position by no means implies 
similarity in the wants or habits of their occu- 
pants. 

Look at London in this respect ; are not some 
of the courts and allies that abut on the splendi4 
thoroughfare of Regent-street, very sinks of 
physical -and moral degradation ? — and what can 
be more hideous than some of the courts, the 
Almonries for instance, so near to Westminster 
Abbey, and St. James's Park; with its silvery 
expanse of water, that looks as calm and peace- 
ful as if a thousand miles distant from the 
mighty capital. 

In Paris, however, the contrasts are more 
picturesquely placed, pictorially as well as 

i2 



172 SHORT ESSAYS. 

morally speaking. Take an old bricked, smoke - 
dyed London house of a middling class, with 
its begrimed windows, in which a few wretched 
parodies on flowers are ranged in vermilion 
pots, fast approximating to the dingy colour 
of all around, and place it beside, I will not say 
a characteristic specimen of old continental 
architecture, with its pointed roof, its quaint but 
pleasing windows, and the lamp suspended on a 
cord across the narrow street, such as even the 
most untravelled are familiar with in Prout's 
admirable drawings ; but an old, or middle aged 
house in one of the unpretending quarters of 
Paris, Rue St. E-och for instance, and what a 
difference is discernible ! 

The dirt of Paris may be greater, but it is not 
so offensively palpable as in a London tenement ; 
a kindly veil of mellowed antiquity seems 
thrown over its most offensive features. And 
the same observation is applicable also to many 
of those moral deformities inseparable from a 
great city; they are veiled instead of being 



SHORT ESSAYS. 173 

glaringly apparent. With respect to the public 
buildings of Paris, there are some on which one 
could gaze for ever — the Palais Royal for 
instance, and the Bourse. I fear as much 
could not be said for London. The Palais 
Royal charms us from the magic variety 
of the scene it incloses as in the frame of 
a picture ; the Bourse commands our attention 
from the classic elegance of its architectural 
proportions, as well as for the associations which 
attach to the commercial emporium of the second 
capital of modern times. Proudly do its mag- 
nificent columns rise upon the eye, dividing the 
brilliant, bustling, eminently Parisian Rue 
Vivienne, and abutting on the battered tene- 
ments of the cross streets between Vivienne and 
Richelieu — a site emblematic of the contrasts 
of Paris. On its summit floats the banner, and the 
blue sky expands itself above, and a brilliant 
sun distributes his rays over this strange mixture 
of human interests, pursuits and passions. 

In London, with less striking individual effects, 



174 SHORT ESSAYS. 

there are more of a combined character; and 
from the nature of its streets, the abundant 
masses of its population are brought to bear 
upon the eye far more than, with some few 
exceptions, is the case at Paris. There is little 
danger of an Englishman's forgetting the glories 
of his own capital. Never can those mighty 
and crowded throughfares, huge tunnels through 
which an endless population is pouring ; never 
can the uninterrupted stream of equipages in 
Hyde Park, or the cloud of horsemen that dash 
down Rotten-row; the downs at Epsom, the 
interminable line of shipping on the Thames, the 
crowds that on a fine Sunday in June extend 
on land and water from the bridges to Green- 
wich Hospital ; never can these, or a hundred 
other spectacles, be effaced from his recollection. 
All that the sublimity of collected numbers can 
effect, is to be found in the metropolis of Great 
Britain. But since the legitimate use of travel 
is to engender, not a blind, but a judicious and 
discriminating nationality ; it may be allowed to 



SHORT ESSAYS. 175 

the most patriotic Englishman to be sensible of 
the attractions of Paris. Of course it ought not 
to be the same home to him as his own capital, 
yet he may allow it to be the ideal of a traveller's 
city, and most justly the pride and boast of the 
great nation of which it is the metropolis. If 
Paris has not a more cosmopolitan reputation 
than London, it at least comes more home to the 
European traveller as a household word. Its 
spoken language and literature, more widely dif- 
fused over the continent than ours, is also more 
rich in descriptions of the capital. 

Paul de Koch has made every reader of his 
novels acquainted with the characteristics of the 
citizen of Paris, and the immediate localities of 
the city. De Balzac goes deeper, and follows 
the springs of action in their influences on a 
population, subtracting local peculiarities from 
the wide and universal field of human motive. 
And many contemporary writers have contri- 
buted their quota towards a physical and moral , 
map of the French capital. 



176 SHOUT ESSAYS. 

London has not had the same advantages; 
though the mightiest and most wealthy empo- 
rium of the world, and known by the ramifica- 
tions of British commercial enterprise where the 
name of Paris has never reached, it is necessarily, 
from its insulated position, not the same travell- 
ing locale for Europe ; still more insulated, too, 
by a language till lately but little cultivated 
beyond our own shores, our colonial dependen- 
cies, and the vast but distant nation across the 
Atlantic ; nor have our writers done much to 
forward a knowledge of the localities of the 
metropolis. Great as is the talent of Mr. Dickens, 
his sketches and illustrations of London life owe 
no inconsiderable portion of their popularity to 
the absolute novelty of the subject. 

To conclude, are we who have known these 
two capitals of modern civilization, sufficiently 
sensible of their wonderful character — wonderful 
alike from the extent and diversity of the in- 
terests they embody, wonderful from the grada- 
tions in the social scale which they embrace ? 



SHORT ESSAYS. 177 

Let the man who can realize to himself what 
Rome was under the Caesars, gigantic and 
dazzling, but coarse and unformed when com- 
pared with the subdivisions of modern civili- 
zation — its life gorgeous and exaggerated, seas 
of blood, mountains of gold, troops of slaves — 
gigantic alike in its luxuries and its vices, the 
spoils of a province in a single house — the thou- 
sand dishes of the banquets of Vitellius — a 
Messalina and a Nero; let him who can re- 
build the city of the Caesars, out of the fossil 
remains that her historians and poets have left 
us, superadding that wonderful faculty of ima- 
gination which would seem at times to possess 
almost a creative power — let such a one o'er- 
leap the gulph of years which divides our age 
from that of the Caesars, ancl then consider if 
London and Paris, at the present day, are not 
more extraordinary, as specimens of what the 
collective power of man can accomplish. 

A population approaching to what is now 
deemed the fabulous estimate of that of the 

i5 



1 78 SHORT ESSAYS. 

eternal city, but acted on by a far keener and 
subtler intelligence, and it is to be hoped com- 
paratively purified by the ameliorating dispen- 
sation of Christianity. 
Paris, August, 1837. 



ON THE POPULAR FEELING IN FRANCE 
TOWARDS THE ENGLISH NATION. 

There was a time, as every body knows, 
when John Bull and his neighbours across the 
channel, hated each other with a most orthodox 
and cordial antipathy. For the origin of this 
feeling, we must go back to the jealousies of race, 
such as that which now divides the Canadas. And 
this was kept up by frequent and bloody wars. 
These stood at once as cause and effect ; England 
and France purchased the right of national 
antipathy at an immense outlay of blood and trea- 
sure. The two courts may have had intervals 
of cordiality, caused by community of interest, 



SHORT ESSAYS. 179 

or concurrence in political intrigue, as in the time 
of Charles 2nd ; but this was not shared by the 
body of either nation. 

The ascendancy of republicanism during the 
French revolution, and subsequently the per- 
sonal influence of Napoleon on the one hand, 
and the war policy of Mr. Pitt and his suc- 
cessors on the other, gave state reasons for the 
continuance of a hostile feeling. Nearly a 
quarter of a century of peaceful intercourse 
between the two nations, has of course wrought 
a great change ; with respect to the higher 
classes of society almost an entire one. The 
young French aristocracy mingle cordially with 
our own ; our taste in horses, equipages, &c. 
is almost universally the standard of fashion ; 
and in return, French cookery, wines, and the 
female department of the toilette, are acknow- 
ledged as our chosen objects of imitation. 

The statesmen of both countries labour to 
promote a cordiality of international relations 
far beyond the conventional routine of diplo- 



180 SHORT ESSAYS. 

matic etiquette. The triumphant reception 
we so lately gave to the most distinguished 
living warrior of France is fresh in the recollec- 
tion of every body. 

Contemporary French literature, commencing 
to be heartily appreciated amongst us, is exerting 
a daily increasing influence on our own; so 
far then, cordial intercourse appears to have 
succeeded to distrust and ridicule. But what 
is the feeling mutually in the middle classes 
of each country? As to England, I believe that 
there is little or no jealousy of France — we are 
in fact too much absorded in great political and 
social questions, and perhaps too proud in our 
own conscious superiority in commerce and 
manufactures, to feel any great jealousy of our 
neighbours. But is this the case in France ? 
Take the conversation of the middle, and even 
sometimes the higher classes. Take the two 
great mirrors of popular feeling, the press and 
the stage ; and what is the result of the enquiry ? 
Surely there is much prejudice and misconcep- 



SHORT ESSAYS. 181 

tion, and paltry jealousy without any definite 
object. A lady asks an Englishman if the 
prejudice against French married ladies is not 
so great in England, that one who was in that 
holy state would scarcely be well received 
among us, from the mere fact of her marriage. 

M. de Balzac, in his last novel, gives a cata- 
logue of our application of the word improper, 
under which category nearly all varieties of 
social intercourse and innocent amusement, are 
forbidden. 

The fine genius of De Beranger has not dis- 
dained some very paltry attacks on England. If 
Paul de Koch ever introduces an Englishman 
in his novels, he is sure to be remarkable either 
for vice or folly. The French newspaper press 
is comparatively free from 'these littlenesses ; 
a manly, fair, and liberal spirit generally pre- 
vails; the exception is the more honourable. On 
our side I find little or no reciprocity in these 
attacks — a few unjust criticisms on French 
literature are the exception to the rule ; and 



182 SHORT ESSAYS. 

generally speaking there undoubtedly exists 
among us a hearty appreciation of the talent, 
vivacity, and taste of our Gallic neighbours. 

To ascend from cookery and dress, to litera- 
ture. Is not De Beranger an honoured name 
among us ? — was there not a deep sympathy with 
the premature end of Armand Carrel ? — does not 
every Englishman who understands French, and 
relishes humour, acknowledge the fund of 
amusement he has derived from P. de Koch. 

Is not their modern school of history daily 
more and more admired among us ? — and immense 
numbers of Thiers' Revolution, translated re- 
cently, disposed of in monthly parts. But in 
this good feeling it maybe said there is a recipro- 
city between the countries. Walter Scott, Byron, 
Bulwer, and many other of our authors, are 
fondly admired in France. True, it is the beau- 
tiful prerogative of literature to break down the 
prejudices, and remove the barriers which acci- 
dent may have thrown between different nations. 
All I assert is, that in no class in England is 



SHORT ESSAYS. 183 

there a hostile or unkind feeling entertained 
towards France. 

Take again the French stage. Fra Diavolo is 
a good humoured caricature, fair enough in its 
satire, and highly relished on our own stage. 
But what can be said of such an ill-natured 
piece as Les Trois Dimanches (at Palais Boyal, 
1838-9) ; where all the point rests in attributing 
dram- chinking to an English lady (let the imbi- 
bers of ' c petits verres" look at home!) — what, of the 
applause which nightly attends Bouffe's delivery 
of the doggrel couplet, the substance of which is 
that he had rather be destroyed by a wolf of 
France, than bit by an English dog.* All 
these circumstances, slight in themselves, have a 
strong accumulative force in proving the jealousy 
which exists towards England among the middle 
classes in Paris. The author has travelled much 
in French diligences, and met with much of the 
same spirit, though, to do justice to the national 
politeness, never offensively expressed. 

* In Candinot, roi de Rouen. — Gymnase, 1838. 



184 SHORT ESSAYS. 

The question then arises, from whence springs 
this feeling — is it the remnant of former antipathy, 
which has been so much slower in subsiding in 
France than among ourselves, as after twenty-five 
years of peaceful intercourse, to be still in full 
force among the middle classes ? 

Or does it arise from a sense of inferiority in 
extent of manufactures and commerce, and in 
speculations, such as railroads, which demand 
large supplies of floating capital ? 

I will not argue the merits of either of these, 
perhaps the two most plausible suppositions ; 
in the one case, time, in the other, progressive 
developement of the national resources, will work 
the cure. 

I am an unfeigned admirer of the French na- 
tion ; they are a great and interesting people ; in- 
teresting from the geographical position of 
the country they occupy ; interesting from the 
recollections of their past history ; interesting 
from the weight and influence they exert on the 
destinies of the civilized world. London and 



SHORT ESSAYS. 185 

Paris are, by common consent, the two capitals 
par excellence — the twin emporiums of all that 
modern civilization can produce. The great 
mass of my countrymen are sincere well-wishers 
for the prosperity of France. And from the 
British shores, this wish for the welfare of this 
great nation, and the removal of all remaining 
prejudice against England, is by no one more 
fervently breathed than by the humble writer of 
these lines. 

Paris, Jany. 1839. 



SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS. 

» 
" The attempt to vie in luxury with persons of greater wealth 
and higher station, is, we fear, hecoming too common among 
the middle classes." — Spectator, June, 1838. 

No doubt the middle classes, and all classes, 
from the base to the apex of the social pyramid, 



186 SHORT ESSAYS. 

will push onwards, and endeavour, by all pos- 
sible means, to gain a step as to style in living. 
Hence, money-making, and money- spending, 
and all the re-action of thrift and extravagance, 
which plays so important a part in the bustling 
existence of a large community. The peculiar 
tendency, too, of our own age, no doubt, is fast ; 
after going through every advance in pace of 
which animal power is susceptible, we have 
called in steam, with its locomotive miracles, and 
this is but typical of much of our social habits. 
The principle itself is as old as human nature ; 

■ hie ultra vires habitus nitor, 

■ hie vivimus ambitiosa. 

Paupertate — 

is as true of London under Queen Victoria, of 
Paris under Louis Philippe, as it was of Rome, 
under Domitian. Still its developement will fol- 
low the shifting character of the times; but 
dress, equipages, sumptuous living, will always 
be the great points of display, since these possess 



SHORT ESSAYS. 187 

the double advantage of gratifying the appetites 
and vanity of the individual, and of giving 
evidence to the world of wealth and what is 
called respectability. 

There is, then, nothing absolutely new in this 
propensity of the middle classes, which the 
Spectator so feelingly deplores; though it is 
very possible that circumstances belonging to the 
present period may promote its developement 
and notoriety. What check, however, supposing 
the evil acknowledged, is proposed ? 

Sumptuary laws, like those at Florence in the 
fourteenth century, would be somewhat out of 
date. Mr. Plumptre might more easily per- 
suade the collective wisdom to allow of no 
baked meats (the toads in the hole, so ably pany- 
gerized by the Examiner) to issue forth on the 
Sunday ; than curtail the shawl and silk waist- 
coats, the satin ties, and extra polished boots 
which contribute to get up a young man of 
1838. Neither would the compulsory substitution 
of a mutton chop, and pint of stout, for the re- 



188 SHORT ESSAYS. 

cherche club or tavern dinner, for trie " little 
fishes " of Greenwich, or the spitchcocked eels 
of Richmond, be more effective with the sleek 
and respectable heads of families. 

As to the ladies, it is perilous to think of cur- 
tailed toilettes, interdicted "clios," and cash- 
meres, and not little bills, with " little French 
miUiners," grown more daring and expensive 
since the days of Sheridan. It is not, however, 
less certain, that with the fair sex, the experi- 
ment would be tried in vain. What, then, is to 
be done ? Why things must, and what is more, 
will take their course. If the middle classes 
live too fast as a body, they will either find out 
their mistake, and pull up in time, or the class 
below, more thrifty and prudent, will take their 
place. 

This, the Spectator admits, is probable and 
cheering. 



SHORT ESSAYS. 189 



PLEASURE ! ! ! 

After all, to enjoy pleasure, and to analyse it, 
to exercise in turn the senses and the intellect, 
is all that is given to man, in the most prosperous 
developement of his organization. 

Nor must we complain, for each pre -supposes 
the utmost developement of our physical and in- 
tellectual natures. But between these successive 
stages there occurs a period to some, which par- 
takes of the properties of both. At this point, we 
look back on the buoyant pleasures of our youth, 
yet more as an actor than a spectator, and their 
reflected glow tinges our cheeks with its parting 
lustre. We look forward to the practical ana- 
lysing future, and have a foretaste of its mental 
power, without the accompanying consciousness 
of the irrevocable departure of the illusions we 
have cherished. It is the mind's transition 
from flexile youth to hard enduring manhood. 
It is a moment pregnant with power, physical 



190 SHORT ESSAYS. 

and moral, for then only do we approach that 
highest developement of our nature, which 
consists in the fullest exercise of the senses, con- 
joined with the maturity of the intellect. 

We approach, but we reach not this consum- 
mation, denied to our present nature, perhaps 
reserved for some future period of existence, 

Trieste, November, 1838. 



LEGITIMATE AMBITION. 

After all, then, said and done, what is the 
legitimate aim of our existence? Ambition 
may claim the fevered exertions of a few, 
who gain a dearly purchased success, whilst 
the many sink into the gulph of ruined prospects. 

Unbridled indulgence in pleasure may destroy 
the multitude, that commit themselves to its 
guidance ; yet these, without claiming any 



SHORT ESSAYS. 191 

ascetecism of principle, these are not the lot that 
we would choose. 

An undying name in the page of history is 
a dazzling, but must, in the majority of in- 
stances, be a delusive hope. The spirit, too, and 
bias of our age, which fosters an average of 
talent, adds to the improbability of success. 
What then remains ? — the same causes that op- 
pose the preponderance of individual talent, 
give encreased scope to the principle of relation. 
And keeping this in view, a nobler goal is per- 
haps now open, than ever in former ages lay be- 
fore mankind. 

Would you play the part of a conqueror, you 
must indeed throw back the world into barbarism 
or anarchy, in order to gain a field for your ex- 
ertions. Would you be a »despot under the 
guise of a citizen, and for your sceptre wield only 
the axe of the fasces ? — would you be a Scylla or 
a Robespierre, you must have a decaying repub- 
lic, or the ruins of a monarchy, for the pedestal 
of your greatness ; but for genuine citizenship, 



192 SHORT ESSAYS. 

of which even the ambition is founded on the 
social sympathies, there is nothing like a rich, 
civilized, active community, like that in which 
Providence has placed our lot. 

To dazzle by a pre-eminence of station, to say 
nothing of the perils that environ a position, 

Unde altior esset 
Casus, et impulsae prseceps immane ruinae, 

is a brilliant, but scarcely, from intrinsic consi- 
derations, a desirable destiny. 

But to hold such a station as connects us with 
our species by the ties of fellowship rather than 
those of interest — to be the advocate rather than 
the judge — to feel the nil humanum of the Ro- 
man poet not as a literary abstraction, but as a 
vital principle — to have ever present those great 
social questions, which, as far as individual judg- 
ment goes, we consider to involve the welfare 
and amelioration of our species — to labour in 
this cause, and to hope, at least, that our labour 



SHOUT ESSAYS. 193 

will not be fruitless. And, throwing over this 
substratum of duty a moderate and not un- 
seemly covering of pleasure, and in this also to 
cherish the social principle , not ex but inclusive, 
— and in our career as senator, journalist, or 
simple citizen, in a bustling age, and a great 
nation — to cherish the conviction that though in- 
dividually our names may not descend to poste- 
rity, distinguished from the mass of our contem- 
poraries, yet that, in the characteristic spirit of 
our times, we have a portion and an interest — 
this is a legitimate object of ambition. 

Thus we shall have the consciousness that 
some currents of opinion which the historian of 
our epoch will have to notice, received an im- 
pulse from our individual exertions. 

May this hope, founded on sober conviction, 
rather than ambitious aspiration, be not un- 
crowned with success. Thus, when the bustling- 
generation of which we are a part, shall have 
passed away, and the tide of posterity shall have 
rolled over their graves — if, amidst the influences 



194 SHORT ESSAYS. 

of the past, we survive — if our exertions have 
contributed to the spread of one sound and 
generous principle, in legislation, morals, or the 
minor details of social life, then shall we be 
content, and deem that we have not lived in 
vain. 



October 1, 1838. 



BOLINGBROKE AND MIRABEAU. 

There were two men in the last century, 
whose dazzling and eccentric career eminently 
fitted them to become the heroes of romance. 
Both possessed brilliant rather than solid attain- 
ments, and both played prominent parts in the 
history of their times, at the sacrifice of the 
commonly received laws of public no less than 
private morality. Each has accordingly found 



SHORT ESSAYS. 195 

his romance historian, and become a familiar 
name with that numerous class who draw their 
ideas of history from the pages of a novel. These 
men are Bolmgbroke and Mirabeau. A word, 
by the way, on the two romances in which they 
figure. Bulwer's Devereux possesses striking 
scenes, and brilliant and sparkling dialogue ; yet 
few, in my opinion, would hesitate to pronounce 
Janin's Barnave to be the higher and more 
finished work. Putting out of the question the 
episode of the daughters of Sejanus, in which 
the descriptive powers of the horrible are car- 
ried to their highest pitch, this romance pour- 
trays in a masterly manner the opening scenes 
of the French revolution ; the wonderful physical 
and moral energy of Mirabeau, his supremacy 
alike in the tribune and the club ; the court of 
Marie Antoinette, from the time when the storm 
did but grumble in the distance, down to the 
disastrous flight and recapture of the royal 
family. The picture is elaborately complete, and 

k 2 



196 SHORT ESSAYS. 

allowing for the royalist bias of its author, very 
faithfully given. 

To return, however, to Bolingbroke and Mi- 
rabeau. The lover of historical parellel will 
easily find numerous points of resemblance be- 
tween these remarkable men. 

In private life, both pushed to the utmost ex- 
treme, and continued long after the former ex- 
cuse could be available, the license pleaded for 
youth, or the loose morality of their age. In 
£ict, not to mince the matter, they were a pair of 
as loose livers as either country produced. And 
this laxity in private life, was (notwithstanding 
what their apologists may say) accompanied by 
a corresponding disregard of public principle. 
It is in vain that Bulwer vaunts the consistency 
of Bolingbroke, or Janin lauds the high pur- 
pose of Mirabeau. Both, when the lustre 
which their genius shed over their career is ab- 
stracted, were men whose personal ambition was 
their sole recognized principle of action. Bo- 
lingbroke's great object was to be the first 



SHORT ESSAYS. 197 

English subject under a sovereign to whom he 
had made himself indispensable, as would have 
been the case under the Pretender. Mirabeau's 
to be the omnipotent Minister of France, under 
Louis XVI. To effect these designs, both un- 
doubtedly high and dazzling objects of ambition, 
neither were scrupulous as to the means they 
used ; but the Englishman has the comparative 
merit of sharing the ill fortune of his party 
without desertion. For the French orator little 
can be said as a public man ; he propelled a great 
popular movement to further his ambition, then 
made his peace with, and notoriously received 
the pay of the court, and if he had lived would 
unceasingly have opposed the party on whose 
shoulders he had climbed to power. That this 
egotistical policy should be made a merit of in 
Mirabeau, that it should be said that foreseeing 
the coming excesses of the revolution, he re- 
pented his share in the downfall of the throne, 
and became on principle a moderate royalist, 
would excite our ridicule and contempt, if 



198 SHORT ESSAYS. 

stated in so many words ; but when wrapped up 
in a clever and eloquent four -volume novel, the 
sophistry may pass muster. 

We would allow all due license to writers of 
fiction, but it is too much to assert gravely that 
this is the right reading of Mirabeau's character. 

Both these remarkable men were eaten up 
with that overweening vanity, which absolutely 
overlooks its own proper attainments to seek for 
applause for those it does not possess, by some 
trick of charlatanism or legerdemain. 

Both, to give the bright side of the picture, 
were endowed with remarkable talents, com- 
manding-personal eloquence, and that winning 
art of attaching men to their fortunes, which 
mere personal eloquence will not effect; both 
had every accomplishment of a finished gentle- 
man ; both, remarkable aptitude and power of 
application. They stand forth, two glittering 
figures, amongst the crowd that peoples the last 
century, and it is indeed a subject of regret, in 
regarding their career, to think that such an as- 



SHORT ESSAYS. 199 

semblage of qualities produced only a pair of 
roues in private, and of versatile, and in Mira- 
beau's case, at least, venal statesmen, in pub- 
lic life. 

Bingen, Sept. 22, 1838. 



THE START AND THE FINISH. 

How pregnant with meaning are these two 
words ! — the salient points in the greaff events of 
human life — in smaller matters the landmarks by 
which memory can retrace the past. The sub- 
ject has been often treated, yet it may still bear 
a few reflections. 

The present and the future, anticipation and 
retrospect, youth and age, with all their associa- 
tions, are but the changes on these two keynotes. 
Let us enumerate a few of the topics here sug- 



200 SHORT ESSAYS. 

gested, leaving to the recollection of each to fill 
up the outline. 

The start for a journey ! — who does not recol- 
lect the moment ? whether at the glorious com- 
mencement of a summer's day, when the sun 
seems absolutely to revel in his power, or the 
perhaps more enjoyable calm but bracing air, 
and cheerful grey of a lightly clouded horizon 
that marks a promising morning in autumn. The 
carriage is packed; a cigar, perchance, lighted; 
the legs are placed at a comfortable angle, and 
you turn the corner full of anticipations of the 
future, of scenery, of acquaintance, of the love 
or friendship that may await you in your course. 

The start on a hunting morning — what asso- 
ciations does it not call up ! A snug breakfast is 
on the table, to which ample justice has been 
done, as sundry fragments of rolls, shreds of 
beef and ham, or it may be a solitary kidney, 
now "left blooming alone" on the dish, amply 
estify. The last half cup of tea is going down; 
a peep at the window says " all right " as to 



SHORT ESSAYS. 



201 



weather ; the drag, and the buggy with the 
trotting mare, or, best of all, the bustling little 
hack, is ready at the door. The first ten mi- 
nutes from your door, as Nimrod says of the 
first glass of port after dinner, are worth three 
hundred a year to any man. 

The start for a race — what a moment of hope 
and fear, and anxious expectation! All looks 
promising. Twenty horses are at the post; 
the condition of all is blooming ; each has hun- 
dreds of friends, and yet but one can win. 

We will not moralise upon a start in life ; those 
who are at that moment are too much occupied 
with the reality, to read what others say about it ; 
of those who look back, each has his own 
recollections, of course, far more interesting 
than any common-place generalization. 

But all things must have an end ; every start 
must have its finish ; come that sooner or later, 
be it prosperous or adverse. 

The journey is over ; reality has succeeded to 
anticipation; pleasure or disappointment has 
k5 



202 SHORT ESSAYS. 

been your lot ; the thing is done, you are at the 
finish. The inn receives you, with its ever 
ready hospitality ; you have seen what you have 
been dreaming of for years ; another spot has 
been wrested from the domain of fancy ; you are 
tired, perhaps out of humour — you are at the 
finish. 

About five o'clock, on a gloomy November 
afternoon, a horseman is slowly pacing down a 
lane, of which a self-formed water-course, bed- 
ded with flints, constitutes the centre, enclosed 
in parallel lines on each side, by two irregular 
shaped banks of mud. The horse and rider 
bear a strong resemblance to one of the figures 
in the well known sporting print of " the work- 
men who have done the thing." A limp be- 
hind bears testimony to' a shoe being wanting ; 
an irregular patch of mud covers one side of the 
horseman's hat, to which a -crooked indent in 
the crown gives a peculiar knowing air ; and a 
supplementary dab under the eye, announces 
that he has been making a close acquaintance 



SHORT ESSAYS. 203 

with a ploughed field in the neighbourhood. — 
He is at the finish, or near it, it is to be hoped 
— for night is coming on apace. 

The finish of a race, y — what breathless ex- 
pectation for the last half minute ! The splen- 
did stand is crowded with spectators; crowds 
line each side of the course ; far in the distance 
a cloud of horsemen are making, a short cut to 
the winning post. Deafening shouts, and a dead 
silence at intervals, mark the convulsive anxiety 
of the assembled multitude. 

Down they come ! — the tail reaches to Tatten- 
ham Corner, (for it's the Derby, and "no mis- 
take/ 5 ) the race lies between three — the favorite 
is beat by a head. The speculations of the year 
are over. — We are at the finish. 

The finish of life is too grave a subject to be 
here discussed — that it is inevitable, will not di- 
minish the regret of those who have been wedded 
to its pleasures without any higher aim, for these 
are past beyond recall. It will not alleviate the 



204 SHORT ESSAYS. 

bitter retrospect of a selfishly useless or perni- 
cious career. 

But there is a reflection, natural enough, 
which arises herefrom. The same round of 
things is about to recommence ; others are at 
their start when we are at our finish; there is 
no pause in the great scheme of nature; as 
Lucretius says in one of those sublime passages 
of poetic description, which go far towards re- 
deeming his material philosophy, that there is 
not a moment of time that is not marked by the 
plaints of new-born infants, and the groans of 
the dying. Thus, then, we are but points in a 
system ; we share the lot of our contemporaries ; 
if at the last we have no pleasant recollections, 
the fault has assuredly been our own 

Milan, Nov. 1838. 



SHORT ESSAYS. 205 



PASSPORTS. 



The inconveniences attending the vises, 
&c, of passports, is often complained of by 
English travellers on the continent. Yet, I 
much question whether the constant occupation 
it affords, at least to those who travel unattended, 
and the demand for exertion, is not a boon 
rather than a misfortune. Then how many to- 
pics are thus suggested, when conversation flags, 
or is not yet established. I well remember, at 
Geneva, a very numerous, and no doubt intel- 
lectual society, got on for some days on this 
subject alone. Altogether, though John Bull 
may complain, continental travelling would lose 
much of its distinctive character if he could roam 
here and there, without regard to barriers and 
local functionaries. 

Then, how many peeps into character are by 
this means afforded. The self-importance of 
local functionaries, in direct inverse ratio to their 



206 SHORT ESSAYS. 

actual consequence, till the syndic of some petty 
village well nigh bursts from self inflation. 

Let not, then, the traveller quarrel with his 
passport. 



A CATASTROPHE. 

" Last scene of this UN-eventful history.'' 

• 

* * * And thus step by step, his energies 
of mind and body crumbled away before the in- 
roads of disease. There is something excessively 
painful in such an end, so different from a sud- 
den blow, which arrests the energies of manhood 
in their full career. And this gradual decline, 
brought out, like the restoration of invisible 
writing, a host of mental weaknesses which pass 
unnoticed in the hours of health. It was then 
that every pleasure he had missed in his progress 



SHORT ESSAYS. 207 

through life, was recalled to his mind like a 
remorse. He thought too of the hours when it 
was given him to have stored up a treasure of 
affection and sympathy for after years, and how 
he had thrown all this aside for the gratification 
of some momentary caprice. And how the claims 
of friendship even had been postponed to his self- 
ish pleasures, and had died away for want of 
nurture. And now he was tormented by his 
jealousy of the only woman on whose gratitude 
he had any claim. And he felt that there was a 
retributive justice in her desertion of him. * * * 
And one after another, all sensations of plea- 
sure vanished, and he could no longer take 
refuge in the negative calm of languor, and he 
thought of all his ambitious projects frustrated, 
and how in youth when he read of the exploits 
of history, his heart had throbbed, and he vowed 
that he too would one day take a share in me- 
morable deeds. And afterwards, when he saw 
the world as it was, and had sketched out for 
himself a career of influence, and activity, and 



208 SHORT ESSAYS. 

usefulness even to mankind (and this last is too 
generally but the supplement to our castle build- 
ing), how this, equally with his dreams of plea- 
sure and visions of heroic enterprize, were come 
to an end. And all the petty jars of an unhinged 
mind came upon him, — regrets, jealousies and 
fears. 

Such was the melancholy close of this young 
man's career, nor is the picture an uncommon 
one. It is a mistake too flattering to our amour 
propre not to be extensively popular, to suppose 
that bad health will necessarilly soften down the 
more sensual and grosser parts of the character, * 
and blend the hitherto jarring elements into a 
philosophical composure. In a strictly regulated 
mind this may indeed be the result ; the fruits of 
long self-government and unselfish action may 
receive their crowning perfection from the 
inroads of physical decay ; but how rare is such 
a case compared to those in which the decline of 
health only induces a deeper and more heartfelt 
regret for past and irrevocable pleasure. 



SHORT ESSAYS. 209 

Nor must we wonder at this : in active life our 
energies are distributed over a variety of objects; 
schemes of ambition, aspirations after the ideal 
retrospect of the stirring events of the past — an- 
ticipations of the untried future, — all these (ac- 
companiments of youth and health,) share our 
attention along with the pursuit of pleasure. But 
when physical debility cramps the powers of 
mind and body, then when these complicated 
interests of the world are fading from our eyes, 
the thoughts are forced back on one subject, the 
pleasures that are past, we look back upon 
them with an energy of regret that is quite ap- 
palling. Thus the debility of bad health is far 
more of an enervating than composing character. 
The young mourn over their career prematurely 
closed ; the old think that they also could have 
done better. 

Of all states of mind this maudlin regret 
for past pleasure is the weakest and most deplo- 
rable. Satiety has its grandeur of impassibility; 
remorse, its convulsive energy ; but there is an 



210 



SHORT ESSAYS. 



intrinsic littleness in the ceaseless reference to 
what is gone, not as a good thing past, but an 
enjoyment lost, (each year haunted by the ghost 
of its predecessor,) which has no redeeming ac- 
companiment. 



Bath, April 1838. 



PART III. 



EXTRACTS FROM A TOURIST'S 
JOURNAL. 



The following are extracts from a journal, a 
bona fide journal, written almost entirely on 
the spots it seeks to describe. These are among 
the most beaten of our tourists' routes. — The 
only value they can possess, must be transcripts 
of the author's mind. 



212 EXTRACTS FROM 

In the last year's tour (1838) there are more 
attempts at detailed descriptions of scenery ; in 
this very difficult branch of composition, some, 
perhaps partial, friends, have thought that the 
author has met with some success. 

This judgment has induced him to extract 
from this portion of his journal, more at 
length. — 

The extracts are arranged chronologically. 



EXCURSION FROM CHAMOUNIX TO THE JARDIN 
ANGLAIS, ACROSS THE MER DE GLACE; AU- 
GUST 24, 1836. 

Olr party left Chamounix at five, a.m.; it con- 
sisted of Mr. and Madame N — from Aix la 
Chapelle, Mr. C — from the Hague, his son 
and two daughters, and myself. Some English 
ladies had performed the same expedition two 



a tourist's journal. 213 

days previously, and it was from the conversa- 
tion that ensued at the table d'hote, that our 
present enterprise (for such it really is for ladies) 
originated. 

We first ascended the Montanvert,all mounted 
on mules except myself — we halted a short time 
at the pavilion — and then having left the mules, 
to await our return there, we commenced the 
tug of war. 

To reach the Mer de Glace at a point from 
which the passage across is practicable, we were 
obliged to descend from the Montanvert, by a 
narrow and rugged path ; and two of the famous 
bridges (les ponts) have to be traversed. 

The footing on one of these narrow ledges of 
rock was, I should say, not more than four 
inches in width, and this slender footing not on 
an entirely level surface ; on one side rose a wall 
of rock, which fortunately sloped inwards a 
little, so that you could prop yourself against it ; 
on the other was a sheer precipice (though not 
very deep), with the Mer de Glace, and its yawn- 



214 EXTRACTS FROM 

ing ice crevices below. In this manner, we 
passed across the face of the rock, all the ladies 
accomplishing the transit extremely well ; next 
came, after a short interval of rugged road, a si- 
milar passage, (the second bridge) shorter than 
the first, hut not less trying ; the guides were of 
course of great assistance to the ladies in cross- 
ing ; with presence of mind and a steady head 
there was no danger, still not every traveller of 
the fair sex would be equal to the task. The 
edge of the Mer de Glace, before the solid ice is 
reached, is composed of blocks of stone of various 
size, embedded in a mass of dirt copiously 
moistened by the melted ice which flows from 
the glacier. This, though excessively fatiguing 
walking, had no appearance even of danger in 
it. 

The Mer de Glace itself, had next to be tra- 
versed, in an obliquely serpentine course, in 
order to obtain favourable ground for passing the 
crevices. 

Some of these were rather awful looking ; one 



a tourist's journal. 215 

in particular, where the passage lay across a 
block of granite which filled up the centre of the 
chasm ; on this you had to jump, with the pros- 
pect, if you missed your footing, of dropping 
into a blue ice crevice of some hundred feet 
deep. After a third part of the Mer de Glace 
had been crossed, our route became comparatively 
easy; in fact, most of this extraordinary glacier 
is fair walking ground. 

After upwards of two hours ice walking, and 
a finish up a hill of ice, where the footing was 
somewhat slippery, we halted at the Couvercle, a 
small tract covered with broken rock. Having 
now attained the farther side of the glacier, 
here we halted, and made a scrambling dejeuner. 
Mr. C — who was upwards of sixty, returned 
from hence to the Montanvert, accompanied by 
the eldest Mile. C — ; the rest of the party pro- 
ceeded towards their destined point. From the 
Couvercle, a steep ascent led us across a rocky 
mountain side ; passing the third bridge, where 
the footing was excessively slender, as in the 



216 EXTRACTS FROM 

other two, with the addition of a really awful 
precipice. Here we had a glorious view of a 
glacier, which like a frozen cascade, seemed to 
fall into the main sea of ice. 

From this elevation, we descended into a val- 
ley of snow, down which a mountain torrent 
urges its course. Here was indeed a prospect ! 
We were in the midst of the sublimest portion 
of the Alpine solitudes — masses of snow, inter- 
mingled with ice, embosomed the rugged crags 
which formed the side of Mount Blanc, and 
these were again lost in a sea of dazzling white ; 
across the whole, floated the clouds, giving a re- 
markable shadow against the sheets of snow that 
spread on all sides. 

This was our view par excellence; from the 
Jardin itself we saw little or nothing. To reach 
this celebrated spot, we had to struggle through 
a valley of loose snow, and also to cross a tract 
of ice, very steep and slippery ; immediately 
beyond this lay our land of promise, the far- 
famed Jardin, which is neither more nor less 



217 

than an island of rocks, surrounded by a sea of 
snow and ice. 

Between the rocks is a scanty herbage, on 
which a few sheep were grazing. 

We had been nearly eight hours en route, 
having ascended to an elevation of about 8000 
feet, having passed over every species of difficult 
ground ; steep glaciers, deep snow, rough moun- 
tain ascents, and the slender passages across the 
rock having all been traversed, we took some re- 
freshment at the Jardin, icing a bottle of Cham- 
pagne at the edge of the glacier : of course this 
was for effect; brandy or even Kircsli-wasser 
would have been far more acceptable at such an 
elevation. 

We had now to retrace our steps ; four hours 
brought us back to Montanvert, where we were 
welcomed by the rest of our party. The ladies 
held out wonderfully, Madame N — arriving at 
Chamounix apparently very little fatigued. 

A comfortable supper concluded the day, and 
we were all heroes and heroines for the rest 

L 



218 EXTRACTS FROM 

of the evening, and some time after. The la- 
dies had reason ; with admirable patience, and 
steady courage, had they gone through the 
hardest day that the Alpine countries offer to 
the tourist. 



MARTIGNY TO VEVAY. 

This was one of the most picturesque day's 
travelling that I have enjoyed in Switzerland; 
but for this I was more indebted to accidents 
of light, than to the intrinsic beauty of the sce- 
nery I passed through. I left Martigny about 
eight, after a most comfortable breakfast, and 
walked leisurely down the valley to Bex. It was 
one of the most brilliant days of summer sunshine 
that I ever saw ; and the effect of the reflection 
(as I suppose) of the sun's rays against the pale 
rock that lines the valley, was singular and 



a tourist's journal. 219 

beautiful. A delicate bloom tint, a filmy veil of 
lilac, faint as the shadow of a colour, clothed the 
sides of the mountains ; above, was a sky of the 
purest blue. Near St. Maurice the heat be- 
came excessive. A slightly-made girl of sixteen 
was carrying an immense basket of fruit, and 
almost fainting under her ponderous burthen. 
I lifted it, and found it a right good armful. 
The Swiss women are so worked in early youth, 
that their vigour and freshness prematurely 
vanish. They would always be a plain race; 
as it is, they become hideous. * * * At Bex I 
took a char-a-banc, and worked on to Ville- 
neuve, where I dined very comfortably. Then 
I mounted a rude sort of cart, with a board sus- 
pended on straps by way of seat. We had an 
excellent trotter, and went a good slapping 
English pace, arriving at Vevay considerably 
within the hour. The drive was lovely : a 
storm had just passed over the lake of Geneva ; 
its waters were still ruffled and crisped with foam. 
On the Martigny side all wore the sombre tint 

l 2 



220 EXTRACTS FROM 

that marks a summer storm. Towards Geneva 
all was brilliant light, which declined afterwards 
into one of the finest sunsets I ever saw, every 
variety of gold, crimson and orange, being li- 
terally emblazoned in the sky. 

September 2, 1836. 



SUN-SET ON THE LAKE OF GENEVA. 

The regular steam -boat having been much 
shattered in the late storm, the Guillaume Tell, 
the oldest on the lake, conveyed the travel- 
lers from Vevay to Geneva. The passage was, 
in consequence, protracted to nearly twelve 
hours ; but pleasant society and glorious weather 
left little cause to complain of this. Towards 
sun-set we saw distinctly the reflection of Mount 
Blanc in the lake — I believe this is very rare. 



a tourist's journal. 221 

The mountain rose majestically, its peaks tinged 
with the faint crimson of sun-set, most faithfully 
mirrored in the lake.* Then, to finish the day, 
what a glorious sun -set ! what rich varieties of 
colour ! The red stream of light blending with 
the deep blue of the lake, and the indescribable 
bloom tint that dyed the Jura range, and the 
reflection of mountains, trees, and when the day 
had passed, of the surrounding lights in the 
water, formed a union of beauties that I shall 
never forget. 

All that the eye could desire, in colour and 
form, was presented in our transit up the lake, 
and in every gradation of size, from the colossal 
mountain with its eternal snows, down to the 
minutest cluster of trees, faithfully mirrored in 
the waters. Then the gorgeous stream of co- 
lours that overspread the horizon at sunset, was 

* This has heen received with some incredulity hy those to 
whom I mentioned it ; I can vouch personally for its 
truth. Capt. H n, travelling with his daughter, first di- 
rected my attention to it. 



222 EXTRACTS FROM 

like the revelation of another and more glorious 
worlds or a Platonic reminiscence of the prime- 
val loveliness of nature, one of those 



Glimpses of glory, ne'er forgot, 

That tell like gleams on a sunset sea, 

"What once hath been, what now is not ; 
But, oh ! what again shall brightly be. 



August 16, 1836. 



FONTAINBLEAU. 



Few situations are more pleasing than that of 
Fontainbleau, a well-built town, surrounded 
by a really extensive forest, intersected by num- 
berless roads of all dimensions, from the grande 
route of Paris and Lyons to the narrow alley, 
lined with sand or dry earth as soft as velvet, 
where your vehicle brushes against the foliage 
on either side. The ground undulates sum- 



a tourist's journal. 223 

ciently to allow of a succession of picturesque 
effects, which are set off by the never -failing 
contrast of a cold grey rock, scattered in pic- 
turesque masses throughout the whole district, 
and relieved by the fresh green of the foliage. 
Of this peculiar style of scenery, the Vallee 
Branchard is the finest specimen; the eye ranges 
for six or seven miles over a tract of wild rock, 
encircled by the deep green of the foliage. The 
vista of rock itself may almost compete for som- 
bre effect with the wilder portions of Swit- 
zerland. 

I should not say that there were many indi- 
vidual specimens of fine timber in the forest of 
Fontainbleau ; the ' DeuxFreres' are but second- 
rate, nothing like the insulated majesty of some 
oaks in our New Forest. »Yet, on the whole, 
from its great extent, the undulated ground it 
occupies, its peculiar rock scenery, Fontainbleau 
must claim a high place amongst the morsels of 
French landscape. 

To enjoy Fontainbleau, you should have 



224 EXTRACTS FROM 

broiled for a week at Paris ; then how cool, how 
delightful its shady drives ! — these will ever be 
remembered by me with pleasure. 

Juhjm, 1837. 



LYONS. 

It is a pleasant excursion, the descent of the 
Saone from Chalons to Lyons, but perhaps no 
travelling is so entirely comfortable as that by a 
steam-boat on a river. Yon have lots of people 
about you, a great point in my opinion. Is it 
hot? — an awning shelters you from the sun. You 
glide on through beautiful scenery, with all the 
adjuncts of society at your command. Do yon 
want to eat ? — supplies are ready at a moment's 
notice, and I have generally found them good 
on a steam-boat. Do yon want a companion, 
pro tempore ? — you have plenty to choose from. 
You can stretch your legs at pleasure, and smoke 



a tourist's journal. 225 

your cigar. In fact, like the Palais Royal, all 
the wants of life, a traveller's at least, can be 
supplied in a steam-boat. 

From Macon to Lyons the scenery is all 
pleasing, (you glide down a fine river, across which 
numerous suspension bridges are in the course of 
erection) : about three or four leagues from Lyons, 
the banks become bold and romantic ; few 
cities can boast of a more picturesque approach. 
Lyons itself is eminently a city of contrasts. 
What can be finer than the quais bordering its 
two noble rivers ? — what more detestable than the 
interior of the town, an absolute caricature of all 
narrow, filthy streets. * * * At the close of an 
excessively hot day, I strolled into the Place 
Belle-Cour. This large square was entirely 
filled with groups, engaged, 'like myself, in the 
process of self-ventilation, apparently with very 
little success. The thermometer marked 9 1 of 
Fahrenheit's scale in the shade to-day. 

Lyons, August 8, 9, 1 0. 

l 5 



226 EXTRACTS FROM 



EXCURSION FROM THE GREAT ST. BERNARD 
TO AOSTA, CORMAYETTR, AND BY THE 
ALLEES BLANCHES TO ST. GERVAIS. 

A motley party of travellers were assembled 
on the 25th August at the hospice of St. Bernard. 
It was my second visit to this celebrated place ; I 
was in consequence something like a travelling 
oracle to the young ladies and gentlemen, and 
pursy respectable heads of families, who had jolted 
in char-a-banc /to Liddes, and toiled up the long, 
and it must be acknowledged, uninteresting path 
which leads to the hospice from the Swiss side ; 
various plans were canvassed for the next day ; 
at last I urged on a group near me, the high 
picturesque claims of the Val d'Aoste and the 
pass of the Allees Blanches. After some delibe- 
ration, the expedition was agreed upon, and we 
set forward on the following morning. It has 



a tourist's journal. 227 

seldom been my lot to fall in with a pleasanter 
party. If these pages shonld ever meet the eye 
of any of those with whom the chances of travel- 
ling thus brought me in contact, I hope they 
will accept this little sketch of our excursion as a 
grateful tribute to the memory of four days of 
social intercourse amidst some of the grandest 
and most lovely scenery that the Alps can offer. 

Our party consisted of Mr. — , Madame V — 
and her daughter from Paris (the latter spoke 
English like a native), Messrs. C — andW — 
from London, Mr. F — from Dublin, and my- 
self. 

The whole party left the hospice on foot; our 
path skirted the little lake, and wound by a 
rather steep descent to St. Remy. 

The scenery has no very remarkable beauties, 
but this was made up for by the hilarity of our 
party, inspired by the delightful air, at once 
summerlike and bracing, which an altitude of 
seven thousand feet produces on a sultry August 
day. After a little bother at the Piedmontese 



228 EXTRACTS FROM 

frontier, owing to one of our party having left 
his passport at Geneva, we proceeded in two 
carriages to Aosta ; as we approached, the sce- 
nery became very fine — the pyramidal wedges 
of mountain are colossal in their proportions* 
and in looking back, the peak of Mount St. 
Bernard makes a good finish to the picture. 

The valley of Aosta is probably one of the 
most fertile spots in Europe ; the Indian corn es- 
pecially grows to an immense size. 

Here we found tolerable quarters, and in the 
evening strolled about the town, surveying its 
antiquities, the most remarkable of which is a 
Roman arch said to have been erected twenty- 
four years before the Christian era. 

The next morning, after a comfortable break- 
fast, we started in two char-a-bancs, and con- 
tinued our route along the valley to Cormayeur ; 
beautiful scenery throughout, abundant wood, 
and luxuriant vegetation of every kind, set in a 
framework of noble mountains. Numerous cas- 
tles and chateaux of more modern date were 



a tourist's journal. 229 

scattered about the valley, some in good repair, 
others figuring as picturesque ruins. We had a 
merry luncheon at Morgex, where excellent 
bread and cheese, sundry bottles of Geneva 
beer, and some capital rum, were appreciated by 
the English portion at least of our party. It is 
difficult to overrate the picturesqueness of Pre 
St. Didier, concerning which, Dumas is so en- 
thusiastic ; that is to say, if you take in the view 
from the hill above it, towards Cormayeur. 
Here is a grand view of the chain of Mount 
Blanc, with the abrupt peak of the Col de Geant, 
not very inferior in altitude to the mountain it- 
self, right before you. The situation, too, of 
Cormayeur is extremely beautiful : here we 
halted for the night, dined late, and took a 
moonlight ramble in the evening, during which 
some singing (very good, by the way,) in the free 
and easy style, amused not a little our Parisian 
friends. 

We left Cormayeur about nine a.m.: the start 
was picturesque ; the mules, four in number, 



230 EXTRACTS FROM 

were sent on in advance, and for a short distance 
the whole party proceeded on foot. Our path 
lay along a valley bounded closely by mountains 
on each side, the peak of the Col de Geant 
being still the most prominent feature. 

The path was at first as soft as velvet, as if to 
introduce us gently to the Allees Blanches. 
After crossing a bridge,we ascended for about half 
an hour, and this elevation introduced us at once 
to bolder scenery. We passed through a copse 
of pine trees; but this was the only vegetation 
visible, for the Alps shut in the narrow defile 
on each side; a fine glacier was here seen on 
our right. After descending into a verdant 
valley, which formed a beautiful contrast with 
the sombre colour of the mountains that 
bounded our horizon, we halted at a chalet, and 
supplied ourselves with rum and milk, which 
classic beverage added wonderfully to the spirits 
of the party ; and this, as will be seen, became 
shortly after needful. 

We now began to ascend, and thought we were 



a tourist's journal. 231 

commencing a real mountain pull ; but no, the 
path descended again, to skirt the wild little 
mountain lake of Combal. Nothing could be 
more gloomy than the aspect of all around : we 
had previously enjoyed a beautiful view of the 
valley of Aosta that we had left behind; the last 
rays of the sun, struggling with a coming storm, 
shone brightly on the foliage, vineyards, and 
meadows of that cultivated district ; but now a 
sheet of mist shut out all but what imme- 
diately surrrounded us. It blended admira- 
bly with the grey rock of the mountains, and 
the waters of this little lake, set in a basin of 
rock and snow, so as to form a combination of 
the most sombre effects possible in nature. Add 
to this, the actual depression of spirits, produced 
by a soaking rain, and an absence of proper pro- 
vision of clothes on the part of our fair com- 
panions, and you will have a travelling party 
well fitted to appreciate the sombre character of 
Alpine scenery. 

We now ascended, and in good earnest, for 



232 EXTRACTS FROM 

we were at the base of the Col de la Seine ; and 
as we rose so did the wind, till it blew a pretty 
stiff gale, and bitterly cold, the rain intermingled 
with snow flakes. Our ladies were in a pitiable 
plight, drenched through, their mules scarcely 
able to make head against wind and rain; and 
the umbrellas, vainly attempted to be held for 
shelter, turned inside out. 

If our fair fellow travellers ardently wished 
to exchange the gloomy sublimity of the Alees 
Blanches for the comforts of the Rue des Mathu- 
rins, and renounced the picturesque with some 
fervour, who shall sit in judgment upon them ? 
At this " climax of disaster," relief appeared, in 
the shape of a mountain chalet, tenanted by some 
cowherds. Here some excellent warm milk, and 
savoury pig's feet, and a blazing wood fire 
(almost converted into steam by the exhalations 
from the dripping party that surrounded it), 
restored in some degree the flagging spirits of 
the party. Thus refreshed, we recommenced 
the ascent of the Col de la Seine. Here a brief 



a tourist's journal. 233 

interval of fair weather allowed us to enjoy the 
double view of the valley in which Cormayeur 
is situated on the one side, and towards the 
Col de la Fours, overlooking Motet on the other ; 
a splendid line of mountain scenery, and towards 
Aosta tempered by the soft tints of a fertile 
valley. The rain now recommenced, and poured 
steadily upon us till we entered the auberge at 
Motet. 

Such quarters for a large party of dripping 
travellers ! — two rooms, through the roof of 
one of which the rain was pouring ; one small 
fire, whose flame almost sympathetically expired 
on the approach of such a circle of moisture as 
we presented ; and a house, small, dirty, and 
overspread with half- clothed children, 

There is an epoch in our feelings, when des- 
pair nerves us to dash at the most astounding 
enterprizes ; but previous to this climax, there is 
generally an apathy which prevents our using 
the commonest precautions within our reach. 
Such was now the condition of some of our par- 



234 EXTRACTS FROM 

ty ; they could hardly muster up courage to pull 
out of their diminutive packets a damp shirt to 
exchange for a thoroughly wet one. The ladies, 
with that patient heroism which is characteristic 
of the sex, resigned themselves to their fate. 
Shall I make the selfish confession that I was in 
high spirits ? I had a pull over the rest of the 
party in a Mackintosh, and tolerably furnished 
carpet bag, and there was something so irresistibly 
ludicrous in the dripping and haggard faces that 
surrounded the fire — travellers for pleasure • 
that with the adjunct of the pithy drolleries of 
our Irish friend, I roared with laughter in the 
little back room, through which we had a glimpse 
of the rest of the party. Some boulli and 
tough mutton, washed down with mulled wine, 
improved the spirits even of the most despond- 
ing ; and after a glass of Kirschwasser round, 
we were in tip -top spirits. Oh ! the ludicrous in- 
cidents of that night at Motet ! — goats and sheep 
poked their heads in at our window ; the rain 
dropped into one of our beds, unmentionable 



a tourist's journal. 235 

insects abounded in another : and then the 
squalls of the children as they were rolled into 
bed in rows, one above another — for this moun- 
tain inn is a receptacle for the children of the 
cowherds, &c, who are boarded and lodged, 
as the landlady informed me, for eight francs a 
month — the tout ensemble realized all that I 
had heard of a populous Irish cabin. 

Although our night quarters were none of the 
best, we did not wish for unreasonable early tra- 
velling. At half-past five our guide came to our 
door. We dressed, which was a succession of 
ludicrous incidents, attended with shouts of 
laughter ; and on proceeding to breakfast, found 

that the ladies and Mr. were already en 

route, wishing, I suppose, to leave the scene of 
their discomfort as soon as possible. 

We overtook them on the second pull up the 
Col de Bonhomme. The word " pull" will be in- 
telligible to all who have travelled in mountain- 
ous countries. You have seldom a sheer ascent 
for more than half an hour or forty minutes con- 



236 EXTRACTS FROM 

secutiveiy ; for from the irregular outline which 
a mountain side presents, it follows that a space, 
sometimes level, at others a gentle descent or 
rise, succeeds to an abrupt ascent. To mount 
the Bonhomme we had three of these pulls ; the 
first over broken turf, not very steep, rounding 
the base of the mountain ; then, after an in- 
terval, such as I have mentioned, we had a se- 
vere half-hour up a clayey path, almost perpen- 
dicular, to a rock, from whence we had a fine 
view of the surrounding peaks. Previously, we 
had in fact seen nothing ; for though the morn- 
ing was fine, a curtain of mist hid everything 
but the path immediately before us. The whole 
party now ascended together, at first more gra- 
dually, and then, for forty or fifty minutes, up as 
steep a path as was ever done by man or mule. 
This brought us to a line of frozen snow, and 
the summit of our pass. 

Here the whole horizon was studded with 
mountain peaks, the celebrated chain of M. 
Blanc ; — some snow-capped, others jagged in 



a tourist's journal. 237 

the most fantastic forms, and one set clustered 
like a fan. This is the crack view of the Allees 
Blanches. It might, perhaps, disappoint some 
who had a high preconceived idea of their pic- 
turesque marvels. The view in question can 
scarcely be termed picturesque in the ordinary 
acceptation of the word ; there is little contrast 
of colour, nor has it the unique sui generis cha- 
racter of the panorama of glaciers that surround 
Chamounix. Still, as an extended view of the 
boldest portion of the boldest mountain chain in 
Europe — the cream of the majestic and severe 
in Alpine scenery, it may well challenge the ad- 
miration of the traveller. 

Touching the Col de Bonhomme, our friend 

Monsieur — , who speaks a little English, made 

» 
a witticism, which from local circumstances had 

great success. In the last steep ascent, when 

nearly everybody was winded, our friend, wiping 

his jolly handsome face, and gasping for breath, 

turned to the assembled party, and exclaimed, 

" What you think of the good man ? " In ac- 



238 EXTRACTS FROM 

knowledgment, we laughed as much as the ex- 
hausted state of our lungs would admit of. The 
descent to Contamine is eminently beautiful; we 
left a fine glacier to the right above Nantbourant, 
and entered gradually on a fertile well-wooded 
valley, crowded with groups of chalets, such as 
you generally find at the base of the Alps, as if 
to compensate for the ^paucity of habitations in 
the latter. 

At Contamine we halted; a substantial meal 
was put before us, and we fed as only travellers 
emerging from bad quarters do feed ; everything 
disappeared. 

Few things can surpass in beauty the road 
from Contamine to St. Gervais : you traverse a 
fine rich valley, resting against the foot of the 
Alps, and one view (which belongs properly to 
those travelling the reverse way), where the deep 
green of a pine -clad mountain abuts without any 
gradation on the pure snOw of Mount Blanc, is 
without a parallel in my travelling recollections 
for its contrast of colour. The shades of evening 



a tourist's journal. 239 

brought us to St. Gervais baths, on the pictu- 
resque situation of which I will not enlarge. It 
is a lovely valley in miniature. Our ladies had 
need of repose; I was truly happy to find after- 
wards that they had not suffered from the incle- 
mencies of weather, and travelling inconveniences 
to which they had been exposed. As in the ex- 
cursion to the Jardin last year, I had again 
cause to admire the fortitude and patience that 
were displayed. 

August 25, 6-7-8. 



FROM THE LAKE OF THUN»TO LEUK BATHS BY 
THE GEMMI. 

I left Interlaken on a lovely September morn- 
ing. The great topic of conversation at that place 
has been the late battle of Interlaken, which 



240 EXTRACTS FROM 

may rank in modern history by the side of 
Hood's revolution of Stoke Pogis. Some weeks 
ago, a party of Englishmen at the H. Pension 
sallied forth after a champagne dinner in a state 
most "uproarious and glorious." As is usual on 
such occasions, the origin of the broil which 
ensued is somewhat obscure — however, a battle 
royal shortly commenced, with certain of the 
voituriers, &c. of the place; our countrymen 
seem, from what I heard, to have fought against 
considerable odds in number, with characteristic 
pluck and courage. In the progress of the fray 
certain gendarmes appeared, officially to quell 
the riot ; our compatriots, however, not having 
the fear of these authorities before their eyes, 
actually wrested his sword from one, and tore 
his uniform. The Swiss combatants were struck 
with horror at this audacity (unequalled since 
the Gaul pulled the beard of the Roman Senator), 
and even the battle's din was hushed. Reinforce- 
ments soon arrived to back the officials, and our 
countrymen were lodged in durance vile. Sum- 



a tourist's journal. 241 

monses, &c. " more Helvetico" succeeded, and 
the affair is still pending. 

After skirting the Lake of Thun, and enjoying 
varied views of that fine sheet of water, I turned 
up a Swiss valley, with its usual accompani- 
ments, a framework of peaked and snow-capped 
mountains on each side, rich pastures and wood 
between, and a brawling mountain stream going 
the pace down the middle. 

It was fair -day at Frutigen ; the auberge was 
filled to suffocation ; I strolled into the kitchen, 
and saw such preparations for solid feeding as 
reminded me of Camacho's wedding. The cook 
fished into a pot, and at the first go out came 
two fowls and a piece of bacon. The quality of the 
cheer, however, by no means corresponded with 
that of the illustrious banquet above mentioned, 
for a piece of mutton I tried was " longo inter - 
vallo" the toughest meat I ever tasted, and this 
is saying a good deal, with the recent recollec- 
tion of certain pig's feet at a chalet on the Allees 
Blanches, and some never-to-be-forgotten beef- 

M 



242 EXTRACTS FROM 

steaks four years back, at Aberdovey in North 
Wales. 

From Fmtigen I started in a char-a-banc, and 
proceeded at a capital pace up the valley to 
Kandersteg. A beautiful valley it is, and the 
picture was completed by the full glow of the 
setting sun on the fine snow slope of the Altels. 
At Kandersteg I found three Englishmen who 
had just crossed the Gemmi. One of them had 
narrowly escaped being frozen to death, in cross- 
ing the Allees Blanches from Contamine to 
Motet too late in the day ; he and his guide 
were overtaken by a snow-storm, and obliged to 
pass the night on the Col de Bonhomme, under 
the partial shelter of a rock. 

I started on foot at an early hour the next 
morning, and mounted a steepish ascent sur- 
rounded by rock and pine for about an hour, 
then crossed a sort of table land of rock, and ar- 
rived at a chalet half-way across the Gemmi. 

After halting a short time I skirted the Lac de 
Daub, a small and solitary sheet of water, placed 



243 

amidst very wild scenery, no vegetation visible, 
all naked rock intersected by patches of snow. 
From hence ascended again, and obtained a beau- 
tiful view of M. Rosa, and some of the other 
Alps, and shortly after reached the edge of the 
Gemmi, which rises like a wall above the baths 
of Leuk. 

I descended the celebrated zig-zag path which 
leads to the latter place ; it is justly accounted 
one of the wonders of Switzerland, and on look- 
ing back from the bottom not a vestige of your 
route is discernible. The mountain rises ab- 
ruptly like a wall, and the turreted form of some 
of its peaks adds to its resemblance to castellated 
masonry. A fitting chateau for one of the Pre- 
adamite Kings, or some equally fantastic and 
shadowy personage. 

September 8-9. 



m 2 



244 EXTRACTS FROM 



A FINE DAY AT GENEVA. 

Geneva never looked more attractive than now 
when about to leave it. The lake was an un- 
ruffled mirror, with here and there a pictu- 
resque sail gliding across. 

It is perhaps difficult to explain the feeling of 
regret one experiences, in knowing that one is 
in a place for the last day. 

Then it is that all its beauties appear to the 
best advantage ; then are pretty faces and neat 
ankles visible at the corner of every street, and 
the whole town seems to reproach one's depar- 
ture at this precise moment. 

And who that wanders over the world has not 
felt reluctant to quit a spot where even during 
a temporary residence he has passed happy days, 
— these may not return ! 



245 



As onward we travel, how pleasant 
To pause and inhabit a while 

Those few sunny spots like the present, 
That mid the dull wilderness smile !" 



The sunset was superb ; from the platform on 
the roof of the Hotel des Bergues it was a magic 
scene. There lay before us the clear outline of 
the Alps, not a peak lost to the eye, their snow 
tinted with the evening crimson — then the re- 
flected light which rested on the surface of the 
lake, the fresh green of the foliage on the banks, 
the deep purple tint on Jura, and for a climax, 
a dark cloud half-way up these mountains : 
all was perfect, and such a variety of colour. 

At this moment the steam -boat came in; 
the Quai and Pont des Bergues were crowd- 
ed, and the coup d'ceil was so enchanting that 
all ou the roof of the hotel burst into a cry of 
admiration. Some lovely women on the plat- 
form, whose complexions caught momen- 
tarily the brilliant tints of the atmosphere, were 



246 EXTRACTS FROM 

not the least attractive objects in this delightful 
view. 



1838. 

EPSOM RACES THE DERBY DAY. 

May 30th. 

The morning, which had been cloudy, changed 
about nine into a very promising appearance, and 
at ten o'clock, our starting time, the sun shone 
brightly on the Derby day. The road was 
" much as usual," if these three common -place 
words suffice to recall one of those wonderful 
exhibitions of collected numbers which the vi- 
cinity of the greatest modern capital can alone 
present. This annual jubilee was as thronged 
as usual — the bustle commencing at Clapham 
Common, and from thence onwards, the road 
covered with vehicles and horsemen of all kinds 
and degrees. At length "the steep ascent is 



a tourist's journal. 247 

won/' and Epsom Downs, that classic ground to 
every Englishman, appear in view. 

Brilliantly shone the sun on this wonderful 
spectacle ; already (one o'clock) a vast multitude 
had encamped on the hill and lined the extended 
vista of the course — but still at each entrance 
a moving train kept adding to the assembled 
crowd. About two o'clock, the stand was filled 
— it is never uncomfortably crammed (like Ascot) 
from its colossal proportions ; elegant women oc- 
cupying the front of the Salon, and the leads 
thronged with their full complement of sport- 
ing characters and pleasure -goers, &c. of the 
other sex. Here the usual recognitions took 
place among our English youth, — " How d'ye 
do, old fellow ? " " Thank y6u, I'm as fresh as 
a three-year old ! " " And you? — feel the beans 
prick, eh ? " — " cum multis aliis " of the affec- 
tionate greetings usual on such occasions. 

The attention of all was now directed to the 
great event; every little bustle near the start- 
ing post was taken for the start, and one or two 



248 EXTRACTS FROM 

false attempts kept adding to the general anxiety. 
About three o'clock the race was run, and leav- 
ing to newspaper critics to describe the exact 
share which each horse took in it, I will just 
state what I saw. I stood on the identical spot 
(marked by an indent in the leads) from whence 
I have seen the four last Derbys, a spot en- 
deared by successive souvenirs of this most amus- 
ing day. 

Shortly after the start was announced, I saw 
(through the boundary line of the crowd that 
edged the curve of the course) the group of 
horses with the kaleidescope colours of their 
riders, making their way at a tremendous pace. 
As they approached the hill, a tail was distinctly 
visible through the loop-holes of the crowd, 
several being already beat by the pace. 

Grey Momus, from his colour, was now con- 
spicuous, apparently pulling very hard in the 
front rank; but all eyes were now turned to 
Tartenham Corner, this being the point from 



249 

whence the fortunes of the day can be conjec- 
tured with some probability. 

It is truly a glorious sight to see twenty 
horses make that turn at full speed, curving 
round the barrier, and dashing onwards like a 
wave. 

Down the slope they come ! — and every 
stride is distinctly visible. " Hats off, gentle- 
men," had long since been obeyed, and nothing 
now impeded the sight of the anxious multitude. 

I was now convinced that Grey Momus could 
not win ; every stride he took seemed more la- 
borious, and two horses now shot ahead of the 
crowd. Ion was recognized as one, but his com- 
petitor passed him, and won cleverly by about a 
length : — the grey was thud. ' But what words 
can give an idea of the spectacle which the 
last ten or twelve seconds of time presented 
to the eye ? I will not attempt what so many 
have seen, and will never forget — the finish of 
a Derby. 

!N~o sooner was the result declared, than the 

m 5 



250 EXTRACTS FROM 

usual movement took place among the immense 
crowd, every one making his comments of joy, 
or sorrow, or indifference upon the event ; others 
asking, with breathless eagerness, which had 
won? 

Some thought it was Chymist ; but all con- 
jectures were soon set at rest, by the judge de- 
claring Amato to be the winner.* 

The refreshment room in the grand stand was 
now filled with parties coming and going, and 
in the centre, the tables were speedily seized on 
by the hungry pleasure-hunters who once a year 
exchange the smoke and bustle of their homes 
for the free air and bustle of Epsom Downs. 
But nothing is more infectious than the gratifi- 
cation of our appetites ; before half an hour had 
elapsed nearly every vehicle was converted into 
a table, knives and forks went to work, corks 
were drawn, and John Bull, represented by the 

* Sir G. Heathcote's Amato . 1 
Col. Peel's Ion ... 2 



a tourist's journal. 251 

nice little party of 60,000 on the course, took 
a substantial meal — " A scene such as no other 
country can exhibit/' said a neighbour of mine, 
who was deep in a veal pie, and watching the 
bubbles in a glass of champagne. I fined him a 
tumbler for the quotation, sighed sympatheti- 
cally, and swallowed my mouthful of tongue. 

But all things have an end ; and appetites 
were at length appeased, and empty bottles de- 
clared that the fluids were exhausted, and with 
the dust and bustle and uproarious jollity of the 
return home, ended (as must end all the excite- 
ments of this bustling world) the Derby of 
1838. Requiescat in pace. 

London, May 31. 



GOODWOOD RACES. 



On the 30th of July, on a fine summer's 
evening, M and I rode from Worthing to 



2.52 EXTRACTS FROM 

Arundel, where we took up our quarters for a 
few days, and joined a very pleasant party for 
the Goodwood Race week. 

I will not enlarge here on the attractions of 
this meeting, on the excellence of the arrange- 
ments on the course, the picturesque situation of 
the course itself, or its sporting claims from the 
number and value of the stakes ; all these points 
are well known. But probably, except to the in- 
habitants of the Arundel side of the country, 
the ride from the latter town to the race-course 
by the downs is not so well known ; it is only 
accessible to pedestrians and horsemen, and even 
most of the latter accompany the string of car- 
riages, and share in the dust and glory of the 
Brighton and Chichester road. 

Few rides, however, in England have more 
claims to the picturesque than the one in question ; 
you skirt the South Downs, winding through 
copses of wood, alternating with slopes of turf, 
enjoying the whole way a series of beautiful 
coast views, till a fine turf gallop, backed by a 



a tourist's journal. 253 

belt of wood, brings you at once on the race- 
course. 

The first day's weather was lovely ; the course 
in all its glory, brilliant sun and bracing air. 
The second day was a sad falling off of blue sky, 
and towards the finish, a falling down of rain. 
But the Cup day was the climax ; it produced 
even more than an average muster of company, 
for the blockade of carriages when I rode up, 
about half-past one, extended from the stand, 
nearly, if not quite, over the edge of the hill 
from the park. 

The weather was unique ; it had rained tor- 
rents in the morning, and subsequently a sheet 
of mist, intermingled with , drizzling rain and 
tearing gusts of wind at intervals, settled on 
the race-course. It more resembled a bad day 
on a Swiss mountain, than anything to which 
our summer climate treats us in England. A 
sea of mud surrounded the grand stand, into 
which were crammed all the beauty and fashion 
of the neighbourhood, whilst almost every 



254 EXTRACTS FROM 

sporting man of note was assembled outside, 
under Mackintosh and umbrella. The sight 
would have been superb, but the weather 
spoiled all. 

The race for the cup, which was, in fact, no 
cup, but an elegant design in chased silver, 
came off about half-past three. It excited, of 
course, considerable interest. 

The celebrated Irish horse Harkaway was 
the favourite, and for once the favourite won. 
Owing to the fog, nothing could be seen of the 
race but the start and the finish. At length, 
after some minutes of anxious expectation, the 
bugle sounds, and shortly after, the horses are 
seen struggling through the mist; the Irish 
horse clear ahead, and Adrian second. I never 
remarked a group of more lovely women than 
my eye rested on in front of the stand. 
Alas ! there was no opportunity for any display 
of toilette, and after sitting out the races 
they had to be conducted through an avenue of 
mud to their carriages. 



255 



START BY STEAM FROM LONDON. 

The vicinity of London Bridge presented, 
this morning, one of those curious scenes which 
belong essentially to the bustling existence of a 
great capital. The Boulogne steam-boats had 
lowered their fares for the first time this season ; 
for five and three shillings John Bull could 
transport himself to French ground, and talk of 
his travels. 

The names of Boulogne and France had doubt- 
less been canvassed, the preceding evening, in 
scores of snug parlours in Whitechapel, and 
about eight o'clock this morning out came the 
result, in a string of cabs, and here and there a 
ricketty old coach, with heavy family baggage, 
that half filled Thames Street. Such a motley 
crowd was never seen, the extreme tail of the 
English travellers for the season. Corpulent 
middle-aged gentlemen were sweating under 



256 EXTRACTS FROM 

ponderous bags and portmanteaus, with which, 
they were hurrying on board ; then came a de- 
tachment of light bandboxes, and nondescript 
minor packages, with, here and there, a greasy 
nightcap protruding through a crevice. The 
" touters " of the rival steamers were remark- 
ably active, and ludicrous mistakes took place 
among those who were misled by the " Queen " 
or "Sovereign's " partisans. 

Impelled by curiosity, I went on board the 
Queen, glanced at the crowd, and thanked my 
stars that I was not going to Boulogne, but by 
the Soho to Antwerp, where two -guinea fares 
render the company somewhat less numerous. 

I started at twelve, and had an excellent pas- 
sage of twenty-one hours — it was, in fact, so calm 
that even the most inexperienced voyager had 
no excuse for being ill — which unlooked for 
comfort contributed to render the party most 
hilarious and sociable — lots of talk and lots of 
feeding were the order of the day and night. 
We were about thirty in number. A splendid 



a tourist's journal. 257 

September morning ushered us into the Scheldt, 
with its banks as flat and its waters as calm and 
glassy as any lover of Flemish landscape could 
desire. 

Groups of small vessels and fishing -boats seen 
here and there with their rows of masts rising 
above the level expanse of water, brought for- 
cibly to one's recollection the water-pieces of 
the Flemish school. Antwerp, once so bustling 
in its commerce, so renowned too in military 
history, is but a ghost of its former self — a heavy 
dropsical languor seems to hang over the whole 
place. " The dull weed that rots on Lethe's 
wharf" has doubtless some specimens of its 
kind about the banks of the Scheldt, in or 
near Antwerp. 

Some tolerable pictures, various familiar house- 
hold recollections of Rubens, the citadel and 
cathedral, are all that can be found to interest 
the general traveller. 

About four p.m., I placed nryself in a carriage 
on the Liege rail-road, and after sundry stop- 



258 EXTRACTS FROM 

pages, arrived at Ans, about two miles from 
Liege. 

Here was an extraordinary scene. About a 
dozen omnibuses were drawn up near the station- 
house, the conductors of which, not content with 
urging their claims for the conveyance of passen- 
gers in modest omnibus style, vociferated one 
and all at the top of their voices — never was 
heard such discordant screaming. In the inter- 
vals of this, there came upon the ear the plaints 
of disconsolate travellers who had lost their lug- 
gage (for it was now dark). Altogether the scene 
was extremely ludicrous. 

At length, after being nearly pulled to pieces 
by rival conductors, I jumped into a promising- 
looking omnibus, and was soon lodged in the 
Grand Monarque at Liege. 

September 13-14. 



a tourist's journal. 259 

descent of the moselle from treves 

TO BERNCASTEL. 

Treves is full of antiquities of all shapes and 
sizes, from a Roman amphitheatre to a fragment 
of an arch. I crossed the bridge and mounted 
a hill to the left of the town. The view of the 
latter and the silvery windings of the Moselle 
formed an agreeable prospect. I dined extremely 
well at the old hotel (Maison Rouge), and had 
a capital bottle of moselle (Braunberger). 

After a good deal of irresolution, I screwed 
up my courage to start in the Eil yacht or ac- 
commodation barge, which descends the river 
twice a week from Treves to Coblentz. Accord- 
ingly, I got up at three the following morning, 
and made a melancholy progress through the 
town on a wet September morning, preceded by 
a wheel barrow of luggage and a lantern. I 
found the little vessel in a most terrible plight : the 
rain which had fallen during the night had de- 
luged the deck, and a black sediment it had left 



260 EXTRACTS FROM 

was gradually oozing into the cabin. In this 
cabin, lighted by two wretched mutton candles, 
sat a party in a sort of medium between torpor 
and ill-humour, at being roused so early from 
their beds. Not finding this society very pro- 
mising, I mounted on deck ; but a chill aguish 
damp that pervaded eveiything soon forced me 
down again to the close atmosphere below. It 
is doubtless proper to try every kind of travelling, 
from the climax of locomotive speed to the anti- 
climax of the slowest possible ; and in this 
respect the Eil yacht is highly deserving of 
encouragement. 

Seriously though, we glided on at a snail's 
pace, sometimes abandoned to the current, at 
others towed by horses through some beautiful 
and always pleasing scenery. Rich slopes of wood 
continually meet the eye ; this is the peculiar 
feature of the banks of the Moselle, and in this 
way the Rhine perhaps offers nothing equal to 
it — but you miss the numberless picturesque 
ruins that adorn the latter. On the Moselle 



a tourist's journal. 261 

these axe few and far between. Our party im- 
proved in humour after breakfast, and at an 
early dinner we appeared to find each other very 
agreeable. We were approaching the rapid 
climax of a traveller's friendship, when the bell 
summoned me to land at Berncastel, my intend- 
ed quarters for the night. Thus it is in travel- 
ling as in life; we become attracted to others, and 
our courses are parted and we meet no more, 
and echoing the feeling of the ballad, 

We think how sweetly life would pass 
With some we're left "behind us. 

Berncastel is familiar to all the world from 
Harding's showy picture in the water-colour ex- 
hibition this season : the artist seems to have 
taken some liberties with the locality, improving 
a little upon nature, by bringing a slope of wood 
nearer the town ; but this is en regie. Without 
embellishment, Berncastel stands finely, with its 



262 



EXTRACTS FROM 



ruined castle looking proudly down from a vine- 
clad eminence. 

September 20-1. 



STUTGARD. 



Some races at Canstadt, a few miles from this 
town, attracted all the fashionables to-day, in- 
cluding the court; I vainly tried to procure 
either a vehicle or horse, the search was as hope- 
less as it would be in the environs of Epsom on 
the Derby day ; I was consequently reduced to 
pedestrianize, which the heat, for it was the 
temperature of July to-day, rendered rather 
fatiguing. 

The races themselves were amusing enough 
to an Englishman, like a play that is bad enough 



263 

to be laughable.* Sundry heavy-tailed jockies 
bestrode ragged-looking horses, and were loud- 
ly cheered, as they passed the circle of specta- 
tors at a pace which was in "Wirtemberg con- 
sidered a regular Tattenham Corner run-in. 

The muster of company was very brilliant, 
including the court, whose equipages, &c. were 
extremely well appointed : but then this is the 
Ascot of the capital. A little after twelve all 
was over, and the beau monde returned to din- 
ner. The beautiful promenades towards Ko- 
senstein were filled with all classes in the after- 
noon; these are the best feature in Stutgard. 
A beautiful range of shady walks and drives 
extending for several miles is not a thing that 
every capital can boast of. 

The much-vaunted palace is disproportioned 
in size to the town ; it is a Versailles, with Stut- 
gard for its Paris, and the huge gilt crown on 

* Should this meet the eye of any who spent the summer of 
1834 at Aherdovey, I entreat them to rememher the performance 
of Auber's Masaniello, at a race bespeak at Aberystwith. 



264 EXTRACTS FROM 

its centre is exactly in that chaste style of de- 
coration which is so much applauded on the 
ample proportions of a Twelfth-night cake. 



AUGSBURG. 



There is an air of respectable antiquity about 
this ancient city, and though a decayed place, 
the impression it gives to the traveller is not un- 
pleasing. 

What shades of individual character are ob- 
servable in the altered fortunes of places that 
once were great ! To take my little excursion 
from London here as an example. Antwerp 
once was great among the greatest ; the great 
commercial emporium of the North of Europe, 
she long defied the arms of the greatest existing 
power. 

What is she now ? — a decayed slovenly town 



a tourist's journal. 265 

resembling a peevish invalid who mourns over 
his departed hours of health. 

Spa was once great in its line, a pinchbeck 
sort of greatness, it may be — what is it now ? 

The crowd of aristocratic "legs/' and ladies 
of immaculate pedigree and doubtful reputation, 
that once crowded the Redoute, are now 
pursuing their vocation at other Spas. Yet 
still the form remains, though the substance has 
departed. The Salon (a noble room, by the bye) 
still echoes to the strains of music ; and, lo ! four 
attenuated figures, ghosts of former gaiety, are 
dancing in the centre. The rouge et noir 
table is still there; but a " beggarly array" of 
five-franc pieces respond to the, call, Faites lejeu. 

From Augsburg, too, the glory has departed, 
yet it seems to bear its altered fortunes with a 
good grace. It is inseparably connected with the 
palmy estate of Burgher life in the middle ages ; 
its " merchants were princes," literally, for the 
Fugger family, of whose souvenirs the whole 
town is full, were ennobled by the emperors of 

N 



266 EXTRACTS FROM 

Germany, in return for some well-timed pecu- 
niary assistance. 

Commercial greatness has now excursed 
farther north; we must look for it on the 
banks of the Thames, the Elbe, or the Mersey. 
The times, too, have changed ; European capi- 
talists, instead of trading in Peruvian gold, like 
the Fuggers, now embark their fortunes on those 
lines of the baser metal, yclept rail-roads. Apart 
from these souvenirs of Burgher greatness, fresh 
in their lusty energy as a draught of generous 
wine, Augsburg is now a handsome, clean town, 
with a contented and healthy-looking population, 
and one noble street, intersecting the whole 
town: few architectural prospects can surpass . 
that looking down the street from the Protestant 
church. 

I made out a day at Augsburg very well; 
after the sights within the walls were exhausted, 
making a trip to a garden about a mile distant, 
where beer-drinking and waltzing were in full 
vigour. I have heard it observed that no man 



267 

who eat a hearty breakfast could lead an immoral 
life ; I always cheered the sentiment to the echo, 
being well convinced of the orthodoxy of my 
morning appetite, and finding, consequently, 
this gastronomic -ethical philosophy altogether to 
my taste. A less exceptionable position perhaps 
is, that a town, which supports a first-rate inn, 
retains much of the principle of vitality even 
amidst its decay. • 

And here is the Three Moors, formerly a 
spacious palace of the renowned Fuggers, con- 
fessed by all travellers to be a first-rate inn, and 
possessing one of the choicest and most ex- 
tensive cellars in Europe. The wine carte con- 
tains 102 varieties. Unfortunately the limited 
capacity of the human stomach forbid my trying 
all these; but of those I imbibed, some red 
Palermo wine, with a full rich flavour, between 
port and Burgundy, left a very pleasant sou- 
venir of the Three Moors. 

October 1. 



N ^ 



268 EXTRACTS FROM 



MUNICH. 

Munich is, undoubtedly, a very handsome 
town — nay, more, it has scarcely any shabby 
streets. The must and dirt of antiquity have been 
rubbed off the really old quarters, and every 
thing wears a neat, jaunty, and fresh appearance. 
It is a city of to-day, all seems just finished, or 
in progress. There are three things which are 
allowed to be first-rate of their kind in Munich, 
— the statue and picture galleries, and the opera- 
house, or national theatre ; of these I disposed 
of two to-day, reserving the pictures for another 
time. The Glyptothec, or gallery of sculpture, 
is a handsome building, with a lofty Ionic portico. 
There is much that is curious and interesting in 
its contents, which, not to plagiarise the guide- 
books, consist of a succession of halls all taste- 
fully decorated, each containing a distinct epoch 
of the art, arranged chronologically; thus you 



a tourist's journal. 269 

commence by the Etruscan, advancing gradually 
to the hall of modern sculpture. In this last 
a girl in a stooping posture, by Schadow, struck 
me the most. 

The national theatre is a noble edifice of co- 
lossal and just proportions. A brilliant audience 
was assembled to-night. Besides a portion of the 
Bavarian court, the Crown Princes of Russia and 
Denmark occupied conspicuous places. Robert 
le Diable, in a German dress, was the piece se- 
lected. The orchestra and chorus justify all the 
praises they have received, and the stage effects 
surpassed even those at the Academie Royale at 
Paris. A more beautiful succession of scenic 
effects than those in the third act, from the 
moonlight shining on the solitary cross to the 
conflagration at the close, it is impossible to 
imagine. 

Mme. Von Hasselt, who, I believe, is con- 
sidered the prima donna, played the part of the 
Princess ; she has a powerful soprano voice, and 
some of her high notes produced an electrical 



270 EXTRACTS FROM 

effect. Bayer, who played the Duke of Nor- 
mandy, had a painful insufficiency of voice ; he 
vainly struggled to fill the immense space he 
had to contend against. The other singers may 
be characterized as respectable. 

The splendid theatre, crammed to the ceiling, 
had a magnificent appearance, and one of the 
best places cost only two shillings. 

Thus it will be seen that Munich has many 
attractions to offer to the traveller, and to some, 
may suit well as a residence. The town is 
handsome and airy ; amusements are cheap and 
good, and provisions abundant. Piercing through 
these outward forms, it will not be very difficult to 
realise a picture of Munich life. The court is, 
of course, omnipotent, as must always be the case 
in small capitals, where there is no class of suffi- 
cient wealth and importance to act as a counter- 
poise. The inhabitants appear to be a happy, 
free -living race ; if little wealth, there is, pro- 
bably, still less absolute poverty in Munich ; and 
the citizen's two great wants, the "panem et 



a tourist's journal. 271 

circences," good living and amusements, &c, 
beer, waltzing, and the opera being supplied, 
all goes on smoothly. Of course, where a 
court meets with no class whose influence com- 
mands respect, there can be no free expression 
of opinion; and this, joined to the general jollity 
and good living that prevails, justified the phi- 
losophical remark of a gentleman who sat next 
to me at the opera. Whilst I thought he was 
examining the legs of a danseuse, he was, in 
fact, moralizing on the social system at Munich. 
— " Ay," said he, " this is the place of luxury 
and slavery." 

October 3. 



MUNICH CONTINUED. 



There is no first-rate inn here; a great de- 
ficiency in a capital which takes such high ground 



272 EXTRACTS FROM 

as to modern improvements. The Hirsch, where 
I am located, by common consent allowed to be 
the best, is but second-rate ; the bed-rooms are 
airy and comfortable, wine carte tolerable : the 
Stein (Franconian) very good, cooking passable ; 
but the waiting is slovenly and bad; and the 
salle a manger dirty and ill- ventilated. 

I took a ride to Nymphenberg, a summer 
palace of the king's. The gardens are laid out 
in the old French style, with statue's at regular 
intervals, rectangular walks and oblong pieces 
of water. The green-houses are extensive, and, 
I believe, the collection of plants is reputed a 
choice one ; but the best things I saw were two 
extremely fine fountains, whose waters dashed 
down in one grand natural cascade, instead of 
being frittered into "twenty points, and then 
squirted out, like so many syringes, which 
is the general plan. I have met with some very 
good travelling society here, having tailed off the 
crowds of would-be tourists that infest the 
Ehine. Altogether, with the fine arts at the 



a tourist's journal. 273 

rate of two doses per diem, painting in the 
morning, and music in the evening, and inter- 
mediately a ride, and tolerable dinner, the time 
passes away pleasantly enough. 



OCTOBER FEST AT MUNICH. 

The sun shone brightly on the great annual 
festival of Munich. Its principal components 
are an exposition of live stock and agricultural 
produce, and a horse-race. It is, thus, at once 
the Smithneld and Epsom of the Bavarian capital. 

From an early hour the streets were crowded; 
every one was in his or her best holiday attire, 
and a mixture of fine rough-looking Tyrolese, 
with the firm step and bent knee of mountaineers, 
gave a novel appearance to the whole. 

The ground where the October Fest is held, 

n5 



274 EXTRACTS FROM 

is admirably adapted for the purpose. An ab- 
rupt ridge divides a fine expanse of turf into 
two plains, one fifty or sixty feet lower than the 
other : on the lowest of these the festival is 
held, and on the ridge itself are cut rows of 
seats, one above another, like an amphitheatre, 
excepting that it forms a line instead of a circle. 
This can accommodate from 20,000 to 25,000. 
Imagine, then, this closely compacted mass of 
human beings, for not a square inch was un- 
occupied ; the heads of the women glittering 
with their showy costume, a bag of gold or 
silver tissue placed at the back of the head. 
Below, beyond the enclosed race-course, were 
carriages, horsemen, not very numerous, and a 
crowd of pedestrians, who had arrived too late 
to obtain a more elevated position. 

A cattle-show, which presented nothing very 
particular, was followed by the horse-race, the 
great attraction of the day. Thirty horses start- 
ed; their jockeys were tolerably accoutred in the 
English style, but rode without either saddle or 



a tourist's journal. 275 

stirrups. They had to go four times round the 
course, whose circuit exceeded, I should think, 
an English mile, so that at the last round the 
tail was awful. These lads rode wonderfully 
well, I thought, and at the finish a very tolerable 
race was made between two. The excitement 
among the crowd was prodigious — the Derby 
was never watched with more anxious expec- 
tation. 

There were many good-looking women among 
the mass, and their head-dresses, glittering in 
the sun, which shone brilliantly, had a gorgeous 
effect. 

Rifle-shooting and other entertainments were 
to have followed the race ; but the hungry 
crowd, for the German dinner -hour had long 
elapsed, dispersed like magic, as soon as the 
winner was declared. 

There were said to be not less than 40,000 
people present. It was really a fine sight. 

October 7. 



276 EXTRACTS FROM 



SALTZBURG AND THE SALTZKAMMERGUT. 

It is difficult to overrate the picturesqueness 
of Saltzburg. Often as it Las been described, 
finishing with Inglis and Mrs. Trollope, I must 
still say a word on its situation. When looking 
from the bridge, on the Bavarian side, the eye 
takes in a fertile valley, through which the river 
Saltz urges its course, edged with every variety 
of mountain scenery, from the pyramidal wedge 
that cuts abruptly against the sky, to softly- 
fringed wooded slopes, which are now glowing 
with the first tints of autumn. High on the 
right, towers the castle, one of the strongest 
fortresses in the country ; it still seems to defy 
the town, prostrate at its feet. This same town 
has a most picturesque irregularity of outline. 
On each side of the river, for a short distance 
from the bridge, the eye takes in a considerable 
mass of buildings : then, instead of a meagre 



277 

straggling suburb, detached groups of houses 
are thrown here and there, some embosomed in 
wood, others perched on eminences of rock 
that overhang the stream. The effect is alto- 
gether most singular. — In company with Mr. 
M — (to whose society I am indebted for many 
pleasant hours in this excursion from Munich, 
and during a fortnight's residence at Vienna), I 
visited the Salt Mines at Hallein. They have 
been described by tourists "usque ad nauseam." 
I was disappointed on the whole : though highly 
curious, there were scarcely any fine effects to 
the eye, which I had, perhaps foolishly, antici- 
pated. The only exception is the first view of 
the brine chamber, a large basin cut in the rock, 
where the salt is in solution : this is illuminated, 
and when you pass it in a boat the effect is cu- 
rious, and even beautiful. Suffice it then to 
say, that we descended the inclined planes, and 
rode the wooden horse, full accounts of which, 
are they not to be found in the books of Inglis 
and Mrs. Trollope ? 



278 EXTRACTS FROM 

We then returned, in the decline of as fine 
an autumn day as was ever made, to excellent 
quarters at the Archduke Charles. 

After some farther exploring the beauties of 
Saltzburg, I started alone to Ischel, arranging 
to rejoin my companion at Lintz. 

Most lovely is the scenery of this part of 
Austria !— less bold than that of the Alpine 
countries, it yields to none in beauty ; an infinite 
variety of outline, hill, dale, wood and water ; 
all bold, if none are absolutely grand, accom- 
panies the traveller to Ischel. Ischel is in the 
centre of the Saltzkammergut, as this district 
is named. 

It is now a flourishing watering-place, throng- 
ed during the summer months, almost entirely 
by German society. An arrival list is pub- 
lished weekly, after the manner of Baden Bade, 
and other places of fashionable notoriety. Now 
that the season was over, I quietly perused this 
very amusing document. It was filled with high- 
sounding Teutonic titles : here and there, an 



a tourist's journal. 279 

English name appeared, oddly enough ; for we 
have not yet at Ischel, as at Interlachen or 
Baden, almost swamped the indigenous spa- 
goers by our numbers. 

I regret much that bad weather prevented my 
exploring the neighbourhood of Ischel. A snow- 
storm accompanied me all the way to Gmunden, 
beautifully situated at the extremity of a lake, 
which, to my eye, greatly resembled that of 
Thun.* 



VIENNA GENERAL OBSERVATIONS. 

Vienna has some local drawbacks which 
greatly detract from its agremens as a residence. 

* The Saltzkamraergut is described at length, and all the 
principal excursions detailed, in " Murray's Handbook for 
Southern Germany." To extol a work which is in every 
tourist's hands would be superfluous ; but I cannot omit bear- 
ing testimony to its general correctness of information, par- 
ticularly as to the inns it recommends. 



280 EXTRACTS FROM 

The old town is narrow, dark and close-smelling, 
though, it must be added, extremely clean for the 
Continent, and admirably paved ; though without 
any flagging for foot-passengers, which, coupled 
with the extremely rapid rate of driving (for our 
cabs scarcely go the pace of the Vienna fiacres,) 
can hardly fail to occasion numerous accidents. 
Then the suburbs, unpaved, and composed of 
a soft crumbling stone alternate between dust 
and mud, to a degree which it requires actual 
observation to credit. 

For exposure to gusts of wind, many parts of 
Vienna might vie with the well-known corner 
of Ship-street at Brighton, which has been 
named the half-way house to the cave of 
iEolus. 

Still, after all these deductions, my impressions 
of Vienna are so pleasing, that were I obliged 
to locate myself out of that great country, of 
which I am proud to be a citizen, as the song 
goes — 



281 

Oh ! England, dear England, sweet gem of the ocean, 
Thy valleys and meads look fertile and gay ; 

The heart bows to thee with expressive devotion, 
And memory adores when in lands far away ! 

I have seen few places where I could so rea- 
dily make myself at home as Vienna. 

Paris, though admirable as a capital, wants in 
some respect the solidity and repose of Eng- 
lish life. Munich is at present a series of work- 
shops and show-rooms, and however great one's 
devotion to the fine arts, one would scarcely 
reside from choice in the atelier of an artist. 

In Vienna, along with much comfort, there 
is an air of unpretending greatness, which belongs 
naturally to a great capital. 'It appears to be, as 
it in fact is, a very wealthy place ; many shops 
go far back into the street, and are filled with 
solid, as well as ornamental, merchandise. And 
there are warehouses in one quarter which, 
i( longo intervallo" certainly, reminded me of 
those wonderful lines at Manchester, which ex- 
tend the whole length of the street. 



282 EXTRACTS FROM 

I have seen nothing of the carriage promenade 
in the Prater, as it is not the season; but the 
thoroughfare from some of the gates, Burg-Thor 
especially, struck me as very imposing. 

The Prater itself is not much to boast of as -a 
drive; for equestrians some of the turf-rides are 
agreeable enough. The carriage-drives are laid 
out in straight lines, and crammed with ginger- 
bread-looking cafes and pleasure -houses ; it is 
something between an English park and the 
Champs Elysees, without the best features of 
either, and very inferior to the English garden 
at Munich. 

The most striking promenade in Vienna, is 
undoubtedly that end of the Jager Zeile which 
opens on to the Prater. The street is of noble 
width in this part ; and when on a fine Sunday 
filled with people, as the eye follows the moving 
line which disappears between the avenues of 
the Prater, the effect is extremely animated. 
The ramparts form a very complete promenade, 



283 

making the circuit of the old town, and giving 
good views of the principal buildings in the 
suburbs; but the buildings which face them 
have no architectural beauty, and the vaunted 
Volks Garden is surpassed by most second-rate 
German towns. The living is tolerably good, 
but dearer than Paris; in fact, economical tourists 
should not visit the Austrian capital. There is 
one excellent Restaurant at the Casino, where 
you dine in very good French style. The sup- 
ply of fish is one of the worst gastronomic fea- 
tures of Vienna. The vaunted Danube carp 
did not strike me as sustaining its reputation ; 
cold trout a la gelee is always a standing dish in 
the carte, but would scarcely be relished often ; 
and between these two, and a dry tasteless fish, 
schill, the traveller's choice is mostly limited. 
But a Styrian capon will cover a multitude of 
culinary sins ; juicy, tender, and fall-flavoured, 
it is an excellent dish, whether roasted, stewed, 
or garnished with tongue, for the breakfast 
table. 



284 EXTRACTS FROM 

Game is plentiful; of the venison and partridges 
I can answer for the excellence, as also of the 
wild boar. 

The French wines are in general use among 
the wealthy citizens; they are drunk here 
somewhat, but very little, cheaper than in 
England. I do not much admire the Austrian 
wines; most of them are sweet white wines. 
The Hungarian are better for general use ; the 
Carlowitz is a useful table wine (red), something 
like the Beaune. 

The women are on the average a fine-looking 
race, superior certainly to Munich. Dark eyes 
and hair, healthy complexions, rather plump 
figures, terminated by thickest legs, pre- 
dominate. 

They dress their hair with great neatness, but 
the chaussure is slovenly, not observing Horace's 
poetical canon — 

Servitur ad imum — 
Qualis ab incepto processerit. 

The national character, as far as my German 



a tourist's journal. 285 

allowed of my sounding it, seemed to tally much 
with what the guide-books, &c. tell you ; the 
Viennese are good-natured, fond of pleasure 
(as who are not that have the means), hospitable, 
and friendly. 

Among the comforts of Vienna to an Eng- 
lishman, the excellent riding-horses must not be 
forgotten ; the establishment of Herr Schadel, 
near the entrance of the Prater from Jager Zeile, 
is on a splendid scale: about thirty horses in high 
condition were in his stables'; about half of these 
were English, the rest Hungarian, crossed with 
our blood. I rode one of the latter, a very hand- 
some bay horse, and an admirable hack for slow 
work. As is generally the case on the Continent, 
it is necessary to stipulate the exact price before- 
hand. It was about the Oxford price, eight 
shillings a ride. 

October 20. 



286 EXTRACTS FROM 



EXCURSION TO BADEN. 

The weather has changed to as bitter an east 
wind as ever graced the month of March. Under 
its influence, and the usual Vienna accompani- 
ment of clouds of dust as soon as the city gates 
are passed, we proceeded to Baden. 

This fashionable watering-place is now of 
course deserted, and the town looked melancholy 
enough, but no change of season could destroy 
the lovely scenery of the valley of St. Helen. I 
wandered for hours in this charming spot ; wood, 
rock, and sufficient allowance of ruins are spread 
over each side of a narrow valley, which might 
almost be called a defile, so abruptly do its sides 
close in towards Heiligen Kreutz. Slopes of 
turf, and paths just scrambling enough to make 
the pedestrian believe that he is in a mountainous 



a tourist's journal. 287 

country, all invite to exercise and exploring 
rambles. 

In the summer, when all Vienna is crammed 
into the valley of St. Helen, no doubt the scene 
must be highly amusing. 

The baths are of a high temperature, and are 
strongly impregnated with sulphur. 



A DAY S LIONIZING. 

We were on foot at ten, and went gradually 
over the Arsenal, which consists of long gal- 
leries filled with arms of all species and dates, 
very neatly arranged. The suit of armour be- 
longing to the last King of Hungary, is one of 
the most curious relics ; his majesty was of very 
small dimensions, the royal race seeming to have 



288 EXTRACTS FROM 

gradually dwarfed. He perished most unroy- 
ally, being choked in a bog whilst fighting. 

The Imperial Library was our next visit ; the 
room is of noble proportions, with a lofty dome, 
ornamented with fresco paintings in the centre. 
We then proceeded to the Porcelain Manufac- 
tory, where we saw some really beautiful copies 
of celebrated pictures ; the painting was in all 
these of most exquisite finish. 

We next visited about half a dozen churches, 
in which Canova's fine monumental group of 
the Archduchess Christina was the only point 
of attraction. This deserves all the encomiums 
that have been bestowed on it. 

We finished by the Capucin convent, be- 
neath which, in spacious vaults, repose the 
bodies of the Imperial family of Austria. I 
never saw so cheerful a sepulchre ; it [is well 
lighted, handsome bronze coffins are ranged in 
rows, some adorned with relievos, others with 
groups of sculpture. Here is the resting-place 
of young Napoleon. A window looks upon 



a tourist's journal. 289 

one of the most bustling thoroughfares of 
Vienna, and one may fancy the deceased mon- 
archs placidly regarding the grisettes, appren- 
tices, and dandies of their capital, passing on 
their avocations of business or pleasure. After 
a stroll into the church of St. Carl, a very 
spacious edifice in the Roman style, and a 
visit to the palace and gardens of Prince Swart- 
zenberg, we dined at our own hotel (Goldenen 
Lamm), where, though the lodging is excellent, 
and situation the best in Vienna, the restaurant's 
department is somewhat coarse and greasy. 
By way of keeping in the same line, we strolled 
into the Leopoldstadt Theatre after dinner, 
where low Austrian farce and broad humour are 
supposed to predominate. At present, however, 
a troop of tumblers seem to monopolize the 
stage, and their antics and tours de force were 
much relished by a crowded audience. 



290 EXTRACTS FROM 

EXCURSION BY RAILROAD TO WAGRAM. 

A beautiful afternoon, for the sky was cloud- 
less and sun brilliant, with a slight autumn frost, 
tempted me to make an excursion per railroad 
to the field of Wagram. This is the commence- 
ment of a very extended line on the Bohemian 
side. An Englishman, Mr. , is the manag- 
ing engineer; I had some conversation with 
him in returning, and he spoke sanguinely about 
its success. After Belgium, Austria bids fair to 
hold the second place in these undertakings. 

A fine Sunday drew crowds to this novel 
kind of promenade ; the carriages were roomy 
and comfortable, and the whole affair appeared 
to be well organized .Half an hour's travelling 
(during which we crossed the Danube,) and 
dashed over a perfectly level country, part of 
the vast plains on which the battles of Elsling 
and Wagram were fought,) leaving Leopoldsberg 
and Kloster-Neuberg to the left, brought us to 
the little village of Wagram, which, though one 



a tourist's journal. 291 

dead level, is far from being unpicturesque in 
its situation, from the line of the Styrian Alps 
which rise behind it. 

Here we stopped, walked over the field, 
which is a spacious plain, with lots of room for 
cavalry movements, took coffee and other re- 
freshment at a cafe close by the station-house, 
a recent creation of the railroad, and listened 
to an excellent band of horns, which played, 
as all German bands do, a great variety of 
music. 

About five o'clock, up came the trains from 
Gandersdorf; and that from Vienna arrived 
almost at the same moment. The scene was 
most animated,— such [steaming and shouting 
and trumpeting as is seldom heard. Like all 
combined excitements which appeal to the senses, 
the impetus increased every moment, and the 
locomotives themselves seemed to snort and roar 
in unison. 

At last order was restored, and the crowd 
rushed, not very ceremoniously, to take their 

o2 



292 EXTRACTS FROM 

places. It was a curious contrast with the still- 
ness of an autumn evening. A glorious sunset 
dyed the Styrian mountains with a deep bloom 
tint that reminded me of Geneva and the Jura. 
There was nature going to rest in all her peace- 
ful majesty. In the foreground was this rest- 
less mass of human beings, laughing and 
shouting and trumpeting (for the music never 
stopped, though the musicians were now lodged 
in a second-class train) ; and here too were these 
wonderful machines — the invention of man, 
which triumph over nature's most powerful laws 
of time and space. 

Neither of the illustrious commanders who 
twenty years back combated on this field ever 
dreamed that steam power would transport 
the citizens of Vienna by hundreds over this 
scene of the great struggle between the two 
empires. 



a tourist's journal. 293 

Sperl's dancing-rooms tempted us to take a 
look at this scene of national amusement to-night, 
— the suite of rooms is spacious and handsome, 
and the scene altogether most droll and national . 
In the first room, clouds of smoke from pipe 
and cigar well nigh obscured the atmosphere — 
in the next, a long vista of tables disclosed 
groups engaged in the pleasing occupation of 
supper ; then came the dancing-room, and this 
too was somewhat encroached on by the supper- 
tables : it was brilliantly lighted ; waltzing was 
going on to the strains of a full orchestra. 
There was to my eye not much beauty among 
the women ; and though v-ery persevering dan- 
cers, they perform with less grace than the 
grisettes at Tivoli. 



At length I take leave of Vienna, after 
a fortnight very pleasantly spent in the Aus- 



294 EXTRACTS FROM 

trian capital. It is one of the pleasantest places 
for residence that I have met with in my con- 
tinental rambles. You have most of the 
comforts of English life, along with a picturesque 
quaintness, that reminds you of the old feudal 
times. Then the proximity to Hungary and 
the still wilder frontier provinces of Turkey, 
gives to the streets of Vienna a variety of 
costume which is not to be found in our 
northern capitals. Turks, Hungarians, and 
Tyrolese are constantly to be seen in their 
national dresses. Really wild deer roam about 
the Prater, and the vast plains which follow the 
course of the Danube, though not picturesque, 
contrast from their novelty with the broken 
scenery to which we are accustomed. 
November 1. 



GRATZ TO TRIESTE. 



As we approached Gratz, the snow which 
lay thick upon the hills had again disappeared ; 



a tourist's journal. 295 

it rained in torrents, and the capital of Styria 
was floating in what is best expressed by the 
not very elegant word " slosh." The long damp 
galleries of the inn at Gratz were not reviving 
to the spirits, after a night in the Eilwagen ; and 
with somewhat desponding countenances, an 
English traveller, Mr. B — , and myself, debated 
on the most eligible mode of proceeding to 
Trieste. It was at length decided that we should 
post together, taking the carriage which is pro- 
vided at each post-station. 

The afternoon cleared up a little, and I 
climbed up to the castle, which commands a 
fine view of the neighbourhood. The environs 
of Gratz are undoubtedly picturesque, yet 
scarcely enough so to sustain the high-coloured 
pictures that are given of it. The town itself 
has nothing remarkable. 

We started at nine the following morning, 
in a caleche provided at the post-house, and 
proceeded at the usual rate to Marburg ; 
here a very pleasant young Englishman was on 



296 EXTRACTS FROM 

his way to Vienna. He was travelling by a 
Lohn Kutscher or Voiturier, which he did not 
seem to find very agreeable, as he was obliged 
to get np at four every morning, and the 
German stopped at half past twelve, and staid 
three hours for dinner ! 

Our next day's journey was through a pleasing 
though scarcely a picturesque country to 
Franz — but the following day, from Franz to 
Laybach, was very beautiful. It had rained 
in the morning, but all was now clear ; the 
range of mountains on our right were covered 
with fresh-fallen snow, which glittered like 
chrystal in the beams of the sun ; the atmosphere 
was in that transparent state which accompanies 
the transition from rain to frost. 

At Laybach we found very comfortable 
quarters at the Stadt Wien, an excellent inn. 
In the evening I strolled into the theatre. I 
was surprised to find a really elegant house, 
well fitted up ; and Herold's Zampa was per- 
formed in a highly creditable manner. The 



a totjuist's journal. 297 

orchestra, as is always the case in Germany, was 
excellent, and the singing respectable. 

I had intended mounting the Castle hill this 
morning, but, alas ! a thick fog rendered any 
expedition in search of the picturesque quite 
a forlorn hope. The same fog accompanied us 
on our route nearly as far as Planina, when the 
sun, after a hard struggle, gained the victory, 
and shone brilliantly forth, lighting up hill and 
valley, studded with endless detached frag- 
ments of rock and groups of pines. From 
Planina, a very picturesque village, we mounted 
a considerable ascent ; the road was well engi- 
neered, and afforded good trotting-ground, of 
which our postilion, for a wonder, availed him- 
self, and we proceeded at a merry pace. The 
setting sun had tinted the horizon with every 
variety of crimson, orange and opal. Far in 
the distance lay a group of mountains, bathed 
in that deepest of all blue which the untra- 
velled eye accuses of exaggeration in the land- 
scape painters of Italy. On the right, the snow 

o 5 



298 EXTRACTS FROM 

peaks of the Julian range caught the faint 
crimson observable in Alpine countries ; while 
in the foreground, pine and rock, and wild 
mountain ridge, were mingled in the most 
fantastic forms. The scene was singular and 
picturesque. The shades of evening brought 
us to our quarters at Adelsberg. In general 
the German supper-hour at country inns is so 
early., that the English traveller, who gets his 
dinner appetite about six, can at that hour find 
the means of making a substantial meal. 
Adelsberg was an exception ; nothing (in spite 
of repeated promises) was obtainable before 
eight, and for two weary hours we contemplated 
the tablecloth, and all the preparations for the 
evening meal, from laying the aforesaid cloth 
down to the infusing portions of acid-looking 
wine into vessels which bore an appropriate 
resemblance to vinegar cruets. Meanwhile, 
the habitues of the place dropped in, and a 
curious set they were ; one fat German, a mag- 
nate of the village, with a drolling swagger that 



299 

vibrated like a pendulum between the long- 
table and the wall of the room, as he walked up 
and down, pipe in mouth, was splendid. How 
John Reeve would have embodied the character 
before grog swamped poor John's intellects ! 
Some meagre Italians joined the expectant 
group ; supper was at last served, mine host 
took his place ; " immeasurably tough 1 ' poultry, 
and too fragrant beef, with potatoes swimming 
in grease, and sour craut for those that liked it, 
filled up nature's vacuum. 

About nine o'clock the following morning, 
we started with a guide to explore the far- 
famed grotto of Adelsberg. I will not describe 
at length what has been so well done in Russel's 
Germany, and the "Hand book;" suffice it that 
this stupendous work of nature fully equalled 
my expectations. I should think that we 
walked at least five miles in these subterraneous 
regions, passing through halls, galleries, and 
winding passages, lined with every variety of 
stalactite formation, from the noble column that 



300 EXTRACTS FROM 

stands in insulated majesty, down to the 
most minutely delicate folds of drapery. 
These last pleased me the most of all I saw ; 
one in the great hall hung exactly like a 
drooping flag, and when the light was placed 
behind it, the transparency was beautiful. 
Another was plaited in delicate folds like a 
lady's robe. In all these, Nature's workmanship 
was so fine as to leave the most finished sculp- 
ture far behind. No drapery of Canova was 
ever so delicately chiselled. 

We then proceeded to Trieste, across the 
howling wilderness which the guide-books prate 
of; it is a curious country, this same Karst, 
especially near Sassina. Diminutive stone walls 
enclose fields which, instead of verdure or tilled 
land, are composed of a succession of slate- 
coloured blocks. The whole country is in fact 
covered with fragments of bluish grey rock, 
between which a scanty herbage is eagerly 
devoured by flocks of meagre sheep. Poor 
animals ! this schoolboy's diet of slate-pencil don't 
seem at all to agree with their constitutions. 



a tourist's journal. 301 

"We were rather late for tlie famous view of 
the Adriatic from the hill above Trieste. Mght 
was rapidly approaching, and we could only 
see a short distance ; yet still the expanse of waters, 
smooth as a lake, tinged by the colours of sunset, 
and the wooded hill cutting abruptly across it 
in the foreground, formed a striking view. 

November 5, 6, 7, 8. 



TRIESTE. 

» 

Trieste is one of the first fish-markets in 
Europe, either for variety or quality ; here the 
classic tunny, the most ancient fish perhaps on 
record, is still highly prized. The soles of the 
Adriatic are delicious, and many species peculiar 
to this coast are exposed for sale in the market. I 
visited this before breakfast, and was amused at 



302 EXTRACTS FROM 

the motley scene. People of all nations were 
vociferating a Babel of tongues, and pushing 
one another over in order to get the first pur chase; 
most extraordinary odd fish some of them were, 
like those that pay a visit to our shores after a 
hard gale. Nothing could be more delightful 
than the climate ; to use a fanciful expression, it 
had the warmth of summer without its heat — the 
union of an inexpressibly mild air, and a sun 
tempered by the season. The climate generally 
is reputed a bad one ; excessive heat prevails during 
the summer months, and the awful bora wind 
pays frequent visits in the spring and winter. 
Trieste, yearly increasing in commercial import- 
ance, is a bustling active town, finely situated 
in an indent of the Adriatic coast ; a good front- 
age of tall stone buildings extends towards the 
sea, and the houses rise gradually on successive 
terraces behind it, till the castle seems as it were 
an apex to the pyramid. Fine hills, overspread 
with vineyards, detached villas of the Trieste 
merchants, and here and there a clustering vil- 



303 

lage, extend on the Italian side, while the Istrian 
coast rises into a bold outline of mountains. 

The commercial activity of Trieste is equalled 
by few places on the Continent, as is the medley 
of languages and costumes presented to the eye 
and ear. After rowing about the bay, visiting 
the lighthouse, &c, and climbing up one or two 
of the hills — in fact, after a sight-seeing day, 
in which the Lazzaretto, one of the most commo- 
dious in Europe, was not forgotten, I embarked at 
eleven for Venice, and at half-past seven the 
following morning we entered that far-famed 
city. 



VENICE. 



I felt much excited by the genius loci, as I 
approached this far-famed city ; the weather was 



304 EXTRACTS FROM 

as melancholy as can be conceived ; a drizzling 
muggy November rain had set in at daybreak — 
under these auspices I paddled in a gondola, and 
established myself in comfortable -looking quar- 
ters at the Leone Bianco. 

I lionized duly for five days, with a pleasant 
party, the details of which I will omit, and 
pass at once to the general impression produced 
upon me by this extraordinary place. 

What a contrast between Trieste and Venice ! 
— though not far distant, the opposite shores of 
the Adriatic are the moral antipodes of each 
other. On one side, like a youth springing up 
into manhood, shouting and growing and thriving 
in lusty energy, lies a rising city, full of bustle 
and commercial enterprize ; on the other, like a 
giant frame mouldering into gradual decay, and 
crumbling bit by bit from its colossal proportions, 
is an ancient and great city sinking into ruin — a 
melancholy and sublime spectacle, a page from 
the ruins of empires. Venice has been written 
on till the theme is run dry. In the days of her 



a tourist's journal. 305 

real greatness, no historian of Europe could pass 
her over. During the last century of her 
decline, three remarkable writers, all men of 
genius, Rousseau, Lord Byron, and Mr. Beck- 
ford, have recorded the impressions she pro- 
duced upon them. 

Another stage in the doom she is destined to 
accomplish is now arrived ; she slumber under 
the rule of Austria, illuminates the scenes of her 
former pride to grace the triumphal progress of 
her master,* and furnishes endless subjects for 
the portfolio of the artist. Such is now her 
vocation. 

The impression that Venice gives is undoubt- 
edly most melancholy. Decay is everywhere at 
work — gradual, but unmitigated and relentless 
decay. Each year some spacious mansion, once 
the abode of grandeur, becomes untenanted ; the 
door is stopped up, and boards fill what once 

* This alludes to the illuminations at Venice, on the Empe- 
ror's return from his late coronation at Milan. 



306 EXTRACTS FROM 

were the windows. A ruin would be more cheer- 
ful ; there, the work of destruction has been ac- 
complished, and you can moralise comfortably 
on the results, particularly after dinner ; here, 
decomposition is going on before your eyes. 

In the same manner a skeleton would be a 
pleasanter companion than a corpse some three 
or four weeks old. Out of the variety of situa- 
tions in which one may be placed (the Ameri- 
canism " location" exactly expresses what I mean) 
God forbid I should be called on to inhabit a 
city which is undergoing that sentence of de- 
struction which seems to have been pronounced 
in turn against all that has been great and famous. 
No ! give me a great city, in its days of great- 
ness, when the current of its life runs strong — fix 
me in Babylon under Semiramis,in Athens under 
Pericles, in Rome under Augustus, in Florence 
under Lorenzo de Medici, in Paris under Na- 
poleon, or in London under our gracious Queen 
Victoria, and I will be content ; but to be 
linked for the term of one's life to the decaying 



a tourist's journal. 307 

fortunes of a town, is a most unfair freak of des- 
tiny. It is chaining the Irving, not to the dead, 
but the gradually dying — a refinement on the 
punishment of Mezentius. 

November 15. 



A DAY S LIONIZING. 

We had an agreeable breakfast party this 
morning at our hotel — Capt. and Mrs. B — on 
their way to Athens, Mr. B — my travelling 
companion from Vienna, and an intelligent Ame- 
rican, Mr. S — ; the latter gave us a sketch of a 
tour in the States, times, distances, &c. We 
started in our gondola, and proceeded to the 
Manfrini palace ; out of a numerous collection 



308 EXTRACTS FROM 

of pictures, seven or eight were very good, the 
rest middling — Guido's Lucretia struck me the 
most ; the Roman heroine is standing somewhat 
in a theatrical position, about to do suicide in 
regular 5th-act tragedy style, but the expression 
of resolution in the eyes and mouth, struggling 
with the paleness of natural reluctance, is won- 
derfully fine. 

There is also a small Magdalene of Correggio, 
very delicately finished. A cup of excellent 
coffee in the piazza impelled me to ascend the 
Campanile : the view was clear ; there lay the 
city at my feet, intersected by the serpentine 
course of the grand canal. Immediately below 
was the piazza, and Basilica of St. Marc, while 
at intervals arose the domes and towers of the 
numerous churches : beyond, lay the various 
island suburbs to the mother city, with their 
groups of buildings rising from the waters, while 
the white waves of the Adriatic in the distance 
enclosed all, like the frame of a picture. I then 
took a gondola, and visited several of the islands. 



309 

The day was fine, and the view realized some- 
thing of one's ideas of Venice. A bright sun 
lighted up the quaint outline of the city; it 
shone on a sheet of water without a ripple, and 
from a sky without a cloud. 

November 18. 



DEPARTURE FROM VENICE. 

I left Venice about eight o'clock : the morn- 
ing was lovely, mild as the' softest day in sum- 
mer. A delicate canopy of mist, faintly tinged 
by the sun, rested on the waters. When about 
half-way to Fusina, this cleared off, and I had a 
good view of Venice at parting. The prospect 
was certainly an enchanting one. An irregular 
line of domes and towers rose proudly from the 
waters — the progress of decay and ^'n was 



310 EXTRACTS FROM 

hidden by distance, and the Venice of other 
days, with its romance of history, its poetry of 
commerce, stood before me. 

It was amusing to see the water-coaches star t 
from Venice, each boat with a body like a dili- 
gence, and the rowers in postilion's liveries. I 
should like to have shown them to Adlam* or 
one of our crack coachmen. 



TRAVELLING EN VETTURINO IN LOMBARDY. 

Continental travelling is not all smooth 
going, as those who work on without a carriage 
can testify; but of all despairing sensations, 
commend me to a Vetturino, with tired horses, in 

* Mr. James Adlam, the well-known whip of the York 
House Bath and London coach. The author is glad to have 
his opportunity of bearing his testimony to the merits of Mr, 
Adlam, both in professional and private life. 



a tourist's journal. 311 

a long line of flat muddy road in Lombardy, 
and rain falling. 

" Lasciate ogni speranza," ought to be the 
heraldic motto of one of these carriages. I do 
not know exactly how they are constructed, but 
I think I am safe in saying that the springs are 
neither C nor grasshopper. You go so slow that 
you feel the fractional jolt of every individual stone 
in your track. You plough on, through an in- 
terminable line of dripping poplars, till your 
ideas of time and space become confused, and 
the motion, like Ixion's wheel, appears eternal. 
Bunyan's " Slough of Despond " was a cheerful 
locality compared to one of these dehghtful pro- 
menades. Certainly, a little of this travelling 
would make the most obstinate anti-railroad 
man or woman a convert to steam locomotion. 
Who knows that the Vetturinos are not secretly 
in the pay of the Manchester shareholders ? 



312 EXTRACTS FROM 



A MORSEL OF CRITICISM ON THE FINE 
ARTS. 

I have brought away two ideas from the pic- 
tures I have seen during my tour; and the 
Munich and Vienna galleries show pretty strong. 

One is — the mastery of Rubens in colouring. 
Take a large picture of any other master, and 
put it beside one of his really good ones, (and 
no painter appears to me to be so unequal,) and 
look at the difference. At a venture, I will in- 
stance two subjects of Rubens, " wide as the 
poles asunder " in character, but each treated 
with wonderful richness and variety of colour- 
ing, without any apparent straining after effect. 
I mean, the Sports of the River Gods, in the 
Belvedere gallery at Vienna; an allegorical 
subject, in which all the monsters of the deep, 
i.e. freshwater deep, are sporting about, and 
fondling the progeny of their tutelary masters. 



a tourist's journal. 313 

The other is the institution of the Last Supper , 
in the Br era gallery at Milan. 

My other idea, or more properly recollection, 
is the ideal beauty of Guido's female faces ; 
they affected me almost to tears. I will instance 
his Magdalene in the second room, in the 
Leichtenstein palace, at Vienna. 

All else that I have seen rests in a confused, 
indigested mass. 



PROMENADES AT MILAN. 

A fine Sunday brought out all the world to 
the promenade of the Cor so Orientale. There 
were the grisettes of the capital of Lombardy, 
with their neat ancles and pretty faces ; there 
was also a fair show of beauty in the carriages, 
and equestrians abounded. 

The fashionable thing, both here and at 

p 



314 EXTRACTS FROM 

Vienna, seems to be driving a fast trotter in a 
tilbury, at his full swing, up and down the drive, 
tlie charioteer sitting well back, and endeavour- 
ing to look quite at his ease, which, now and 
then, the countenance belies, as the horse is 
swinging round a corner. 

They have got hold of some fast trotters, both 
here and at Vienna, but I don't know how they 
are bred. One chesnut mare I saw in the Pra- 
ter would be difficult to beat, by anything under 
a very crack one ; she kept two well-bred hacks 
going abreast at a smart gallop. 

All this tearing up and down a drive is very 
silly work, and when you come to a journey no 
pace is to be got at. 



PROSPECT FROM THE DUOMO. 

Every tourist enlarges on the magnificence 
of the cathedral : I can sincerely add my quota 



a tourist's journal. 315 

of admiration — the whole is so light-looking 
that it is some time before the eye becomes aware 
of its colossal proportions. 

A fine day determined me to mount the ex- 
terior : I was rewarded by a remarkably clear 
view. The town lay at our feet, its streets 
clustered together like a gigantic nest; the flat 
rich plains of Lombardy formed a broad belt 
completely round; while on the Swiss side, 
the curved range of the Alps rose in all their 
mountain grandeur ; the eye could follow their 
course from Mount Cenis to the Tyrol; the 
giant Ortler spitz, across whose edge the Stelvio 
road passes, was particularly conspicuous: all were 
more or less covered with fresh-fallen snow. I 
walked entirely round the leads of the cathe- 
dral, and then only had a full idea of the im- 
mensity of its architectural proportions. 

******* 

The postilion of Longjumeau has cracked his 
whip, and sung his song, (the only pretty air 
in the opera,) on almost every stage in Europe. 



316 EXTRACTS FROM 

I have already heard him in three languages, 
and Donzelli attracted me to-night to La Scala. 
He sang the song beautifully, of course. I de- 
parted early, not wishing for a second infliction 
of the stupid ballet, and arrived at the Teatro 
Re just as the curtain was rising on a senti- 
mental three-act drama, adapted from the French, 
" II y a Seize Ans %" the catastrophe is absurdly 
improbable, but Signora Bettini acted with 
great power and pathos, and was seconded by a 
very tolerable company. 

The price of admission to this snug little 
theatre is one swanziger, eight-pence. 



SIGNORA BETTINI AGAIN. 

* * * A very full audience was assembled 
in the Teatro Re, for the benefit of their chief 



a tourist's journal. 317 

comedian. A play in six acts, Naples and 
Palermo, was the piece selected. 

A scapegrace of a painter marries a Sicilian 
Countess (Bettini), in spite of the warnings of 
Gerrati, an old friend of her family, who reads 
sermons and gives advice to all the characters 
round, and is of course never listened to, till the 
event proves the soundness of his counsels. The 
Countess and her hopeful husband go to reside at 
Naples, where he begins to show the cloven foot 
and speedily becomes the Don Juan of his quar- 
ter ; he is pursued by assassins at the instiga- 
tion of some of the parties he has outraged, and 
at last falls a victim, in spite of all the Coun- 
tess's endeavours to save hiiri. 

Signora B.'s performance was admirable 
throughout. In the earlier scenes, before her 
marriage, when she sustains the character of the 
high-bred woman surrounded by suitors, her 
deportment was most lady-like and charming ; 
and in the last two acts, where the pride of an 
injured woman struggles with the remains of 
p 3 



318 



EXTRACTS FROM 



affection for her husband, she absolutely rose to 
the sublime. 

Her bursts of indignation in the scene where 
she discovers to her husband her full knowledge 
of his perfidy were given with a force and 
truth that I have never seen surpassed. 

The audience were enthusiastic; deafening 
cheers , in which I joined to an extent that ren- 
dered me hoarse for some days after, waving of 
hats and handkerchiefs, and the reappearance 
of the Signora, with all due etceteras, followed 
the fall of the curtain. 

And this admirable dramatic entertainment 
cost only eight-pence. 



November 30. 



a tourist's journal. 319 



A FINE DAY ON THE LAGO MAGGIORE. 

As soon as morning dawned, I rushed to my 
bedroom window at Arona, and gazed on the 
lake spread out before me. — A canopy of mist 
rested on the waters, and the sky gave promise 
of a brilliant day. 

After breakfast, I proceeded in a boat to Ba- 
veno. Perhaps the lovely scenery of Maggiore 
was never seen to greater advantage than to-day. 
The sky was all but cloudless, and the atmo- 
sphere most beautifully transparent. The sun 
glittered on the villages and groups of houses 
that line the shore. I surrendered myself en- 
tirely to the magic of the scene ; no retrospect 
of the past, no anticipation of the future, di- 
vided my attention ; there lay for me the entire 
world within the circle of those waters. There, 
rose towards Baveno the swelling outline of the 
hills that form the basin of the lake ; there, be- 
yond, the snow peaks of the Alps shot right 



320 EXTRACTS FROM 

into the sky, like a barrier between time and 
eternity, while above was the blue canopy of 
heaven. Not a sound was heard but the plash 
of the oars. 

All that delicate blendings of colour and 
beauty of form could give to delight the eye 
lay spread out before me. 



WINTER PASSAGE OF THE SIMPLON. 

The snow fell thick as I left Domo D'Ossola. 
At Isella the sky cleared, and I had a full view 
of the Alps in their winter dress. This elevated 
country has been under snow for some weeks. 
Most magnificent was the spectacle — the wheels 
rolled noiselessly through the bed of snow that 
lay across the road; the only sound was the 
roar of the torrent and the dash of the water- 
fall. Here and there a peaked rock rose against 
the sky from its base of dazzling white. 



a tourist's journal. 321 

The pines which linger on each declivity of 
the pass were crusted over with frozen snow. 

I shall never forget the scene. I have crossed 
the Simplon before, and am familiar with the 
Alpine passes ; but no one who travels through 
them in summer has any idea of their sublimity 
at this season. 

About the great gallery at Gondo the ranges 
of icicles were magnificent; many from two to 
three feet in length. 

Though in an open carriage, I enjoyed the 
keen frosty air; but the wind did get a little 
cold as I approached Simplon. I slept at the 
well-known inn, and found it as comfortable 
as usual. At seven the following morning, I 
started per diligence, which is now a strong 
square wooden box, with small air-holes ; four 
moderate people would exactly fit it. This was 
fixed on a sledge, and with steady perseverance 
we ploughed through the snow to the summit of 
the pass. The scene was lovely : a bright at- 
mosphere (it froze hard of course) and brilliant 



322 EXTRACTS FROM 

sun lighted up the landscape of dazzling white ; 
the crystallized snow sparkled like so many dia- 
monds. At intervals a mass of grey rock broke 
the uniformity of colour ; and above was a sky 
of the purest blue, without a cloud. A strong - 
ish snow-drift lay across the road near the new 
Hospice ; a crowd of workmen were employed 
in clearing this away, and after a few minutes' 
delay we passed onwards. This was the only 
shadow of an obstacle to our progress. It was 
merry work that remained, the last four leagues 
to Brigue. Gaily we bowled along, at every 
turn of the road the atmosphere becoming more 
genial. Pines and vegetation seemed to hail 
our progress from these " thrilling regions of 
thick-ribbed ice," and the anticipations of a 
hearty meal consoled the extraordinary appetite 
that the Alpine air had created. 

December 4. 



323 



APPROACH TO PARIS. 

It was with no small pleasure that I found 
myself, after a very cold journey, approaching 
the capital of France. A fog that would have 
done honour to London extended over the 
Seine and environs of Paris as I drove in from 
Charenton. On approaching this great city, 
which recalled also so many pleasant recollec- 
tions, a crowd of reflections came upon me. I 
thought of travelling impressions in general, 
and of the peculiar ones suggested by the ap- 
proaches to a great city. It is the outpourings 
rom the suburbs that give* a just idea of the 
greatness of a capital. A central point or tho- 
roughfare is but a section, and a small one, of 
an active bustling town. Then I thought of 
France — of her political destinies, of her litera- 
ture — that literature so active, so varied, from 
the grave march of history to the lightest ro- 
mance that ever beguiled a leisure hour. 



324 EXTRACTS, ETC. 

And I thought of the pleasures that Paris 
offers to the traveller, and of her cuisine, and 
of those immortal products of the grape that 
have kindled the inspiration and by a natural 
consequence received the praises of genius in 
all ages. 

December 15. 






THE END. 



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